


In the Warmth of Friends

by NuMo



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/F, I work in a place where miracles happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2019-11-07 14:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 89,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17962028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuMo/pseuds/NuMo
Summary: And then Myka loses track of Helena for a second,lessthan a second, and the woman isgone. Myka looks around herself – they’re in the Hollywood sector. Myka immediately thinks of all the Wizard of Oz artifacts; wonders which of them Helena might have discovered to make the dreams she dared to dream really come true. Her brain presents her with a map of the sector and the shortest route to check them all. Then Myka hears the shrill whistle of a tea kettle – or Coffee Pot – and starts to run in that direction immediately, map and route forgotten.She rounds a corner and stops short – Helena is prone on the floor, Coffee Pot rolled out of her ungloved hand, hair spread out around her head like a halo, knees pointing to the right like the fast-forward on a stereo. There’s no ferret in sight but what thereis,is a child sitting next to Helena, shaking her shoulder. Myka’s breath stops as surely as her feet did a moment ago.The child looks over her shoulder, eyes frantic, and says, “Mummy will not wake up,” and Myka regains control of her diaphragm and her legs and moves towards the girl at a pace somewhere between a rush and an ‘I don’t want to startle you’ approach.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yay new story! I know a lot of people have gone the "Christina gets brought back to life by an artifact" route. I wanted to look at what that would actually mean in terms of emotional fall-out for Helena, but also for Myka. I hope you like what I came up with! As always, feedback is extremely welcome. I live for your comments! 
> 
> Beta-ed by the wonderful Faerirose, as usual.
> 
> The title is a line from the episode "The Inner Light" from Star Trek: The Next Generation. In it, it's used as a phrase in a naming ceremony for a child, expressing that the child will start out their life "in the warmth of friends". I thought that our lovely Warehouse family counts as a warm friendly circle, that's why I used this phrase as the title. (if you haven't seen that episode, please do. It is relevant to this plot, but it is also one of the best Trek episodes ever.)

There is a second, when Myka tells Helena about how she came to have a ferret called Pete, a _second_ where Myka doesn’t realize what she just said. 

A second. 

Then she notices the look in Helena’s eyes, which lasts even shorter than a second. Then Helena changes the topic, to what kinds of strange and exotic pets were all the rage in Victorian England, and if Myka were anyone else, she might think she imagined that shorter-than-a-second look. That shock-inspiration-calculation sequence that raced through Helena’s eyes upon hearing of a coffee pot that fulfils wishes.

She is not anyone else, though, and although part of being Myka is second-guessing every decision, she rarely, if ever, doubts what her senses present her with. She knows what she saw.

Days go by after that, and Helena does nothing – _seems_ to do nothing, Myka tells herself, because she can’t be around Helena all the time without it getting creepy. She’s around Helena often enough for Pete to start spouting theories anyway. Juvenile, completely out-of-the-question theories. Then she wakes up from – gets out of, whichever applies here – Helena’s time machine, and Claudia tells her about how Helena kept holding her hand throughout, ostensibly to feel her pulse. Claudia, who’s younger than Pete but so much less juvenile, who has no motivation for theorizing of any kind. 

More days go by, and, chastised over the use of her time machine, Helena stays out of the stacks. _Seems_ to stay out of them, Myka tells herself, because what with Pete’s theories and Claudia’s hero worship of both Helena _and_ Myka, she really shouldn’t be around Helena as often as she ends up being anyway, shouldn’t be aware of where Helena is and isn’t the way she ends up being anyway. 

Artie, going the path of least resistance, always pairs them for inventory, and can Myka help that?

Truth be told, she very probably could at least _say_ something if she minded enough. 

But this way, she can keep an eye on what Helena does when they’re in the stacks together. 

Which is why she doesn’t speak a word to Artie. 

And then she loses track of Helena for a second, _less_ than a second, and the woman is _gone_. Myka looks around herself – they’re in the Hollywood sector; mostly harmless but some serious whoppers. Artie has them cataloguing artifacts from the early days of movies, because Helena had professed an interest over those times at breakfast, had admitted to watching old silent movies all night ( _I’m afraid I don’t sleep too well. The Bronze, you understand_ and Myka does understand, or at least tries to, which seems to be more than some of the others do), and Artie had _pounced_ because that man still has zero point zero sympathy, especially when it comes to Helena ‘nobody knows what the G is for’ Wells.

Hollywood sector. Myka immediately thinks of all the Wizard of Oz artifacts; wonders which of them Helena might have discovered to make the dreams she dared to dream really come true. Her brain presents her with a map of the sector, placement in it of dangerous and/or pertinent artifacts, and the shortest route to check them all. Then Myka hears the shrill whistle of a tea kettle – or Coffee Pot – and starts to run in that direction immediately, map and route forgotten. 

She rounds a corner and stops short – Helena is prone on the floor, Coffee Pot rolled out of her ungloved hand, hair spread out around her head like a halo ( _I had to keep it pinned all my life – it is simply marvelous to have it flow free, don’t you agree? Oh, of course, your curls. My apologies_ ), knees pointing to the right like the fast-forward on a stereo. There’s no ferret in sight but what there _is,_ is a child sitting next to Helena, shaking her shoulder. Myka’s breath stops as surely as her feet did a moment ago.

The child looks over her shoulder, eyes frantic, and says, “Mummy will not wake up,” and Myka regains control of her diaphragm and her legs and moves towards the girl at a pace somewhere between a rush and an ‘I don’t want to startle you’ approach.

She drops down on Helena’s other side, checks her pulse and breathing: normal; checks her pupil reaction: unmeasurable, for the eyes move more rapidly than REM sleep suggests, _if_ REM sleep persisted through your daughter – for, yes, part of Myka realizes who is hovering across Helena right this very moment – your believed-dead-for-over-a-century daughter, your _I was distraught, quite mad, I'm afraid_ daughter, _that_ daughter shaking your shoulder and calling out ‘Mummy’ so pleadingly.

“Will she be alright?” that daughter asks, and Myka remembers that she is eight years old and probably extremely afraid right now. Does she even know about the Warehouse?

Myka closes her eyes for a moment, tries to compose herself (‘stiff upper lip’, her brain shouts at her, ‘keep calm and carry on’ and other unhelpful things) before looking over at the girl. She debates if she should smile, but discards it when she realizes it wouldn’t be a genuine one. “I’m not sure,” she says, “but we’re gonna do all we can to help her, okay?”

Kids love a plan; Myka remembers that from her babysitting days. Kids love when grown-ups have a plan. Kids love when they can help. Give the kid something to do, then, Myka’s brain prompts her. “I need you to do something for me,” Myka says, while still only vaguely sure what that something might be.

The girl nods immediately, eyes very, very serious. 

“I need you to keep an eye on your mummy’s eyes,” Myka says, finding something appropriate for an eight-year-old to do. “Right now they’re moving very fast behind their lids, see that?” Worryingly fast, but Myka doesn’t, _mustn’t_ say that; the kid is anxious enough as it is. 

The girl scoots closer, scrutinizes Helena’s face, nods again. Myka tries very hard to not distrust a child brought here by who knows which artifact – they’re miles from Lewis Carroll’s Mirror, and there doesn’t seem to be anything weird about this child. Well, apart from her floor-length white frilly nightshirt, but- _focus_ , Myka’s brain shouts at her. You were giving that kid something to do. “Can you watch and tell me if that changes?” she asks, and the kid nods immediately. “If they start moving faster or slower, or if their movement stops? I’ll need to take care of-” Myka looks at the Coffee Pot – or at where the Coffee Pot has been. It’s gone again and she bites down on a frustrated groan. Then her eyes fall on a different item, that’s rolled a bit farther, under the lowest nearest shelf. It’s small and slender like a wand, and Myka frowns, trying to make out what it is. “-whatever _this_ is,” she says and tilts her head towards it. “Can you do that?”

The kid nods again. She seems serious and anxious and focused enough that Myka decides to not make her repeat back what she’s supposed to do; patronizing is the last thing she wants to be towards this child.

“Good,” Myka says, “that’s great.” She rocks to her knees and takes a neutralizer bag from her back pocket (‘never leave office without them,’ she can hear Claudia sing) and shakes it out. As per protocol, she’s wearing gloves and, as per protocol, she double-checks them for holes or tears as she walks towards the shelf. Nothing. She nods to herself as she crouches down. All in working order. She reaches out and her fingertips _just_ graze the artifact. She scrabbles at it until it rolls towards her – it’s a flute, metal and resin and a beige cord with a tassel. She recognizes it immediately and swallows. 

Artifacts from the Roddenberry Aisle can be immensely strong. And the Ressikan Flute, a prop from one of the best episodes of the franchise, used by one of its most iconic characters, is one of the most powerful ones. Combine it with Howard Carter’s Coffee Pot and who knows what the result will be?

Has Helena seen the episode? Myka knows both Pete and Claudia have been at her to watch Star Trek, but has she heeded them? A lifetime lived within twenty-five minutes; a lifetime completely unlike your own; a lifetime with children, among them a daughter ( _Seize the time, Meribor. Live now. Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again_ ) you’ve raised to be a scientist – is Helena living such a lifetime right now? Or did the combination of Flute and Coffee Pot set off something different – apart from, _somehow_ , bringing Christina here, of course? Did Helena mean to combine the Flute with the Coffee Pot, or did the Coffee Pot ambush her like it did Myka?

All these thoughts shoot through Myka’s head as she stares down at the Flute. She shoves it into the bag and sparks fly; then she turns back to where Helena lies, her daughter at her side. “Any changes?”

The kid shakes her head without lifting her eyes away from her mother’s face. 

Myka sighs. Would have been too much to hope for, with two artifacts acting in tandem and one of them now who-knew-where, where it couldn’t be neutralized. “Okay,” she tells the girl, “I’m coming back over to you.” She keeps a lookout for the Coffee Pot as she crosses the aisle, but no luck, as expected. When she crouches down next to the kid, she can see the tension in the small jaw. “I got this, okay?” she says gently, then proceeds to check Helena’s head and neck for swellings or bruises that would counter-indicate moving her. She doesn’t find any, and nods decisively. “Let’s get your mother somewhere safe, where there are more people to help us solve this problem.”

The girl looks at Myka at those words, fully at her for the first time, and Myka almost stumbles back. Her eyes are lighter in color than Helena’s, but they’re just as intelligent, just as piercing. Then they soften into fear. “Alright,” the kid says in a trembling voice. 

“Hey,” Myka says, even more softly. “You can trust me. I would never do anything to hurt Hel- your mother. Or you,” she adds quickly. Then something occurs to her. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I haven’t even told you my name yet, have I?” Not that her name would mean anything to that kid, other than an additional trust building block, but that’s enough for now. “I’m Myka Bering. I work with your mother.” _Does_ the kid know about the Warehouse? Did Helena tell her where she worked? The kid does seem almost comfortable here in the stacks, certainly not scared by the multitude of random objects stuck on shelves, but maybe she’s simply too scared about what happened to her mother to care about other things.

The girl actually holds out a hand. “My name is Christina Frances Wells,” she says, and then, displaying an amount of etiquette astonishing for someone who’s Helena ‘to hell with social mores’ Wells’ daughter, adds, “How do you do?”

Myka bites down a laugh. Good question, Christina Frances Wells. Instead she takes and shakes the hand of Helena’s daughter, purple glove tangling in nightshirt ruffles.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy International Women's Day, everyone! Have a chapter that features an all-female cast!

Helena’s head shoots upwards with a strangled gasp. Her eyes fly open and alight on structures-

Artie’s office. 

When last she was here, it had been cracked open to the elements like an eggshell, and filled with eddies of snow or ash; she had not looked too closely, other matters had been more pressing. The sight of it, unharmed, makes her ears ring. What on-

Her breaths are too shallow, fast, gasping gulps of air. A hand wraps itself around her shoulder and a face comes into view, a face she last saw in- her thoughts flee from that memory, yet the face remains. 

Myka Bering.

Myka Bering is holding Helena’s shoulder, strong steady fingers curled around muscle and bone, face intent, mouth moving – she is saying something that Helena cannot hear over the ringing in her ears and the gasping gulps of air.

Helena’s hand comes up and clamps Myka’s wrist, clings to its steadiness to stop the world from tilting. “You’re dead,” Helena realizes she’s saying, over and over again. “You’re dead!”

“I’m okay,” Myka says, and Helena would bet a pretty shilling she has said so several times already. “I’m okay, and you’re okay, and you’re here, with me. We’re okay. Helena, we’re okay.” Myka’s other hand wraps itself around Helena’s cheek, creates two brackets of warmth and steadiness with her face in the center, the face that last had looked at Helena over the barrel of a revolver, telling her to-

Helena can still see the trickle of red that had run from the wound, can still hear the echo of the shot reverberate around the valley. 

Her stomach heaves and she surges past Myka, to the small bathroom at the end of the hallway, still roofed, blessedly free of snow or ash, and brings up – food. Food! When has she eaten last, that there should be food in her stomach? There is the sink, still intact. There is water when she turns the tap. It is warm and she marvels at how it runs over her skin, how after a moment it gets hot enough to sting. She does not know when she last felt warm.

She washes her face in too-hot water and relishes in her skin’s protest.

“Mummy?” a voice calls out behind her and she whirls around. Water runs into her eyes, eyes that are staring at a shape that she cannot possibly be seeing. Water drips out of her eyes, a face comes into focus. “Mummy, are you better now?” 

This face. This voice. 

That Myka should be here, here in this Warehouse untouched by snow or ash, yes, but-

“Mummy!”

Helena’s knees buckle. 

As she sees Helena’s eyes roll up into her skull, Myka rushes past Christina, past Doctor Calder, and still isn’t fast enough to prevent Helena’s head from cracking against the sink. The bathroom is tiny and she pushes herself against the back wall as Doctor Calder examines Helena, moments after having examined her daughter. Said daughter peers around the bathroom door with frightened eyes, but is smart enough to stay out of the way. Still Myka worries about her. She wished Pete were here, if only for distraction. But everyone is out on a ping and Myka was told to keep an eye on Helena and look how great _that_ worked out. She’s lucky that Doctor Calder’s in town, overseeing the refurbishment of the Warehouse medical suite, and very probably totally not hanging around with Artie when he’s there. 

“She’s alright as far as I can tell,” the doctor says finally, pushing herself upright with her hands on her knees. “We should get her to a bed. A proper one, not that couch,” she nods towards the office, then eyes Myka. “Are you up to carrying her again? Can you get her up the staircase?”

Myka sucks her lip in. “I can lift her fireman-style,” she says and it’s true. It’s how she got Helena here in the first place. “But if she has a concussion…”

Doctor Calder nods. “No fireman style, I agree; we shouldn’t move her head around that much. Well then,” she sighs, “I take her shoulders, you take her legs?” She nestles Helena’s head carefully against her chest, then looks up at Myka expectantly.

Together, they carry Helena up the stairs, Christina trailing along behind them like a worried little dinghy. 

Artie’s bed is huge and unmade and it can’t be helped, so they put Helena on it, boots and all. Myka notices the shivers that run through the unconscious woman’s body and wraps the blanket around her. She briefly wonders if Artie has a hot water bottle or heating pad up here somewhere when Doctor Calder interrupts her thoughts.

“Did she say anything earlier, when she woke up?” she asks, and Myka tells her, with a few apologetic looks in Christina’s direction, how Helena had insisted she was dead, over and over again. 

“And then she left to… um, vomit,” Myka says, fingers worrying the inseam at her knee. Then she looks back up at the doctor, wanting to ask but not daring, because she’s a grown-up and there’s a child present and it’s a grown-up’s task to not worry the child with asking if the child’s mother is going to be alright.

Doctor Calder nods, looks at Christina too, much more overtly, and pats the bed. “Come on and sit down, Christina,” she coaxes. “Your mom gave us all quite the fright, but she’s better now.” This is Myka’s cue to let go of the breath she’s been holding in.

“She’s still un…, um, un…” Christina starts, eyeing the figure on the bed warily. “Not asleep. The other one.”

“Unconscious, yes,” Doctor Calder says calmly. “But she woke up for a moment, and focused on Myka. That’s good, even if the result was vomiting.” She turns back to Myka. “You are certain that she focused on you? That she _saw_ you?” Christina mirrors the doctor’s posture, and this time when that kid looks at her, Myka realizes that Christina’s eye color matches her own quite closely.

Myka thinks back on that moment of sheer, stricken horror on Helena’s face and nods. “Yes,” she says in a cracked voice, clears her throat, tries again. “Yes, I’m sure. Going from what we know about the Flute and from how she reacted just now, I think she did live through a different lifetime of some kind.” She ponders briefly how weird this all has to sound to Christina if the child really doesn’t know about the Warehouse, but it can’t be helped right now. Doctor Calder has to know, and Myka will just have to explain it away for Christina. “If the Flute did to her what it did on the show, she would have woken up when she…” Myka clears her throat again and drops her eyes, unable to look at Christina while saying the next words, “when she died within that hallucination, or whatever it was.”

“But she didn’t…” Christina’s words are slow, more pondering than frightened, and Myka looks up in bafflement. “She isn’t dead, is she, Doctor Calder? Miss Bering? She is simply unscon-” her voice stumbles a moment over the word, and her frown deepens, and she tries again, “unconscious.”

“Correct,” Doctor Calder says immediately, and gives Christina a reassuring smile. “See, this is her pulse.” She points to Helena’s carotid and Christina leans forwards and nods when she catches the movement. “We’ll stay with her until she wakes up,” the doctor goes on. “And then we can ask her what happened to her, and once we understand what’s going on, it won’t seem so frightening anymore.”

Christina nods. “When will she wake up?”

“We don’t know for sure,” Doctor Calder replies, and Christina presses her lips together in frustration. Myka almost laughs at the similarity between mother and daughter, but catches herself in time. Doctor Calder continues, “It might be just a few moments or, if she slips from unconsciousness into sleep, it might be a couple of hours. Neither would be reason to worry. If she’s unconscious for longer than a few minutes – I can tell the difference between sleep and unconsciousness from her vital signs – or if her vital signs get worse, we will take her to a hospital. Do you know what vital signs are?”

Christina nods at once. “Pulse and breathing,” she says. “And Miss Bering asked me to watch Mummy’s eyes earlier. Should I do that again?” She’s already half-turned towards renewed scrutiny of Helena’s closed eyelids when Doctor Calder chuckles. 

“No, there’s no need this time,” the doctor says. “Look, her eyes aren’t moving at all right now.”

“They might start again,” Christina maintains, and Doctor Calder inclines her head in agreement.

“That is true,” she says. “However, I’m sure Agent Bering has a few questions for you right now. Would it be alright if I watched over your mother’s vital signs while Agent Bering talks with you?”

Christina ponders this for a moment, subjecting Doctor Calder to a stare that is as sharp as the one she gave Myka earlier, then nods. “Yes.” And without further ado, she turns to Myka expectantly.

Myka is taken aback by Christina’s instant attention, and a little thrown by the ‘Miss Bering’. Should she be Myka? Is ‘Miss Bering’ or even Doctor Calder’s ‘Agent Bering’, so businesslike, so professional, more reassuring for a frightened eight-year-old who’s used to Victorian etiquette? Myka briefly, _fervently_ , wishes for a bit of time in which to process this, time in which to figure out how to explain to Helena, when she wakes up, who is here and how and why and how best to handle this development, but all of that will have to wait – except, possibly, the beginnings of the ‘how and why’. 

“Christina – um, is it alright if I call you Christina?” Again she regrets not being up-to-date enough on Victorian propriety, especially where it pertains to children. Would it be ‘Miss Christina’? _Should_ it be? Christina nods, though, and Myka gives a silent sigh of gratitude. “Alright, then, Christina, I would like to know if you remember what happened before you got here.”

Christina’s eyes lose focus as they look back into her memories. “I was in bed,” she says with a concentrated frown on her face. “I said goodnight to Uncle Gerard and Aunt Mareille – they’re my mother’s cousins, not siblings,” she adds, “but I call them Aunt and Uncle. They asked me to. Sophie came and tucked me in, and then I think I fell asleep. And woke up here.” She looks around Artie’s bedroom curiously. “This is a very strange place,” she says. “Are we still in Paris?” Her eyes take on a most disconcerting gleam, and she adds, “Is it still the same year, or are we in the future? I couldn’t help but notice that you’re wearing trousers, Agent Bering and Doctor Calder, and my mother does, too. And your flashlight, Doctor, is smaller than anything I’ve ever seen. Is this the future, then? What year is it?”

Myka exchanges a helpless look with Doctor Calder. “We, um…” she falters. She doesn’t want to be the one to tell Christina; Helena should. If Christina doesn’t know about the Warehouse, telling her anything about it would make her Myka’s One, and Myka is not sure that’s a good decision at this point. Her thoughts turn towards the question of how long Christina is likely to stay, and shy away again at once. Anyway, surely it’s Helena’s decision whether her daughter learns about the Warehouse or not. Tell Christina that, then, her brain prompts. “If you can wait a little,” she tries to bargain, “I think that is something your mother would like to tell you when she wakes up.”

“Has she been here before, then?” Christina asks, head tilted, then smiles an excited, almost triumphant smile. “You _did_ say you work with her, Agent Bering, did you not?”

“Nothing much gets past you, I see,” Myka replies weakly. She’d hoped Christina had forgotten about that. She clears her throat and sits up straighter as an idea comes to her. “It’s a long and very interesting story,” she says, “and I do know your mother well enough to know that she likes to tell those herself.”

Christina’s smile instantly widens even more. “That is true,” she grins. Then she tilts her head to the side. “Mummy always says that life is full of extraorne-” Christina frowns, concentrates, starts over, “extra-or-di-nary stories if you look closely. Is this one of them, then? Then I suppose she _should_ tell me all about it. She always goes after Uncle Charles – he’s my true uncle – that he can’t tell stories properly. She’s much better at it than he is.”

The last line is delivered very proudly, almost archly, and Myka can see and hear Helena in the words. Her knees go weak and she almost sinks to the bed, too. Instead, she grabs hold of the nearest bed post. “She is, isn’t she,” Myka says in a shaky voice. “Um, anyway,” she continues, “that aside – where did you go to sleep? You said Paris, right?”

Christina frowns again, instantly serious, instantly curious. “Yes,” she answers. “My aunt and uncle’s house; I was visiting with them. So I am not there anymore, aren’t I?” she adds with a surprisingly excited gleam in her eyes. “Where are we? Your accents are quite peculiar, Agent Bering and Doctor Calder. Are you American? Are we in America? And how did we get here so fast? Did someone use magic? Mummy had a wand, I saw it drop from her fingers – was that what brought me here?”

“You saw-” Myka begins and, again, has to clear her throat. “What exactly did you see when you came here?” she asks then. “Can you tell me what you remember about that?”

“I opened my eyes and Mummy was standing in front of me,” Christina says earnestly. “At first I thought it was a dream; I knew she was in London. I was very sad when I left on the train with Aunt Mareille and Uncle Gerard, but the train ride was exciting. I’d never been on a train ride that long before! We had tea on the train, _and_ supper. And then there was a ferry, too!”

Myka nods. “I’m sure that _was_ exciting,” she says, and Christina blushes.

“I apologize, Agent Bering,” she says, quirking her mouth in annoyance at herself. “I’m afraid I got distracted. Mummy always tells me I get distracted when telling a story, and that I need to stay focused.” The little crease between her brows is adorable and incredibly recognizable. “So,” she goes on with a toss of her head that marks her as her mother’s daughter even more, “I was telling you about my dream. But I realized it wasn’t a dream, because Mummy didn’t smile at me or embrace me, and I became…” Christina sniffs, presses her lips together and goes on with an impatient frown, “I became a little frightened. And then Mummy swayed and fell over, and dropped the wand she had been holding. Oh, and she dropped a tea kettle too!” she adds, then shakes her head. “At least I think it was a tea kettle; later when I looked again it wasn’t there anymore. But you found the wand, didn’t you, Agent Bering?” 

“Not quite a wand,” Myka replies evasively, “but yes, I found it and made sure there wasn’t anything… weird going on anymore.”

Christina nods earnestly. “I stayed away from them as far as I could, just like I promised Mummy. She says when ordinary items make extra-ordinary things happen, I should keep my distance. That’s why I didn’t look to see if she was alright at first; I was… I’m afraid I was still a bit… a bit frightened.” She presses her lips together again. The eyes she sets on Myka plead for reassurance. 

“Of course,” Myka readily gives it. “I would have done the exact same thing. Always make sure it’s safe to check if someone’s alright. No need to put yourself in danger too.” She crouches down until her eyes are level with Christina’s, and again she’s hit by how similar they are to her own. “Okay, here’s a really important question,” she says slowly. “Christina, do you remember if your mom saw you before she fainted? Looked at you and actually _saw_ you? Do you think she knows you’re here?”

Christina ponders this really important question for a moment, then shakes her head. “I don’t think so,” she says hesitantly. “I think she was very surprised when she saw me just now. I think she would not have been so surprised if she knew I was here.”

Both Myka and Doctor Calder nod. Myka thinks briefly about how she wouldn’t have used the word ‘surprised’, but if that’s what Christina saw or what she’s telling herself, it’s a lot more benign than other words would be, and who is she to burst an eight-year-old’s bubble? Things are going to be difficult enough, she knows, and she’s had barely enough time to start to think about just how difficult. 

“I don’t want to surprise her that way again,” Christina adds in a very small voice, and Myka’s attention snaps back to the present. 

Thankfully, Doctor Calder intervenes here. “It can be scary when your parent has a medical issue,” she says gently. “It’s okay for you to be scared and worried, alright? I don’t think your mom is going to be quite that surprised next time she sees you,” she adds, and Myka wants to hug her for the reassurance in her voice alone. “I think she’s going to be very happy. She missed you a lot while you were gone. So maybe she’ll cry from happiness; sometimes people do that. You know that, right?”

Christina sets her chin. “Of course I do,” she says indignantly and Myka bites her tongue not to laugh at the toss of that little head. Part of her brain insists that she’s got to be in some kind of shock, too, because wanting to laugh is totally not an appropriate response. She’s got to keep a clear head; she’s got to take care of Christina while Helena deals with whatever has happened to her. With _all_ that’s happened to her, yet another part of her points out, and starts to list Victorian misogyny, the trauma of learning that your child has been murdered, the added trauma of over a hundred years in Bronze- 

She shuts her thoughts down. Doctor Calder is still talking to Christina, and Myka had better listen.

“So you’ll know there’s no reason to worry if she starts crying,” Doctor Calder is saying in an unperturbed tone of voice. “She hasn’t seen you in a while, after all.”

Understatement of the century, Myka thinks. Then she realizes something, at the same time as Christina yawns. “It’s still the middle of the night for you, isn’t it?” she asks the girl. 

Christina nods and sits up straighter. It is marred by only the teeniest of sways, the minutest of lags to her blink. “I’m not tired, though,” she insists. 

“I don’t doubt you’re curious,” Myka says, because boy, has she ridden _this_ rodeo before, “but it’s okay to be curious _and_ tired, you know. None of the things you’re curious about will vanish while you sleep, I promise.” She sees Christina cast an anxious glance down at her mother’s face, and her heart aches. “And your mom won’t vanish either,” she adds. She can’t help but worry, again, if _Christina_ will vanish, though, vanish like fairy gold in the morning sun. It must have shown in her expression; Doctor Calder shoots her a warning glance, and Myka schools her face into a smile. “You can curl up right next to her if you like. That way you’ll be the first to know when she wakes up. Okay?”

Christina is attacked by another yawn while she thinks about this. She huffs at herself in a clear carbon copy of her mother’s frequent exasperation, then climbs onto the bed and snuggles into Helena’s side. After a moment, she props herself up on an elbow, pecks her mother’s cheek, then settles down again. 

She’s asleep within seconds, and Myka and Doctor Calder are left to stare at each other and the bed in turn.


	3. Chapter 3

The next time Helena wakes up is a much gentler process. There is familiar warmth snuggled into her side, and her arms close around Christina without much conscious thought. For a moment, a brief, precious moment, this is all she knows – she is in a comfortable bed, she is warm, Christina is with her, and the scent of apples is in her nose. It is this last thought that rouses the rest of her brain. This particular scent of apples means the Warehouse, and she does not remember when she last slept in the Warehouse with Christina at her side, and trying to remember that occurrence drags her fully out of sleep and into petrified wakefulness. 

There is still a warm little body in her arms. 

The scent of apples lingers, as does the peculiar smell of a child – this child. Her child. 

Her heart stutters to a stop.

Helena does not want to open her eyes. Whatever this is, she does not want it to end, and opening her eyes could bring that end about. Her arms curl more tightly around Christina’s shoulders, and her daughter stirs. 

“Mummy?”

The voice is washed out and slurred from sleep and the most wonderful and breath-stealing sound Helena has heard in a long time. 

None of her motor skills seem under her command anymore. Christina starts to struggle against an embrace that Helena has no hope of loosening, and repeats her entreaty, “Mummy?”

The word tears through Helena, from vocal chords and lips through the air into her ear into her very soul. She trembles. Her arms, her mouth, her eyelids – nothing will do her bidding. 

Then warmth envelops the shoulder that Christina is not moving against. Warmth – a hand, steady, reassuring, familiar. She knows that hand, but that hand and her daughter cannot be in the same place, cannot-

Her eyes finally fly open.

Myka is hovering half above, half next to her. Their eyes meet briefly, then Myka’s gaze drops to Helena’s side. 

Helena is afraid to follow it, deathly afraid despite the smile on Myka’s face, despite the movements, the so familiar movements against her chest, despite the third rendition of an equally familiar “Mummy?”

Myka’s hand – for it is none other, of course it is not – squeezes her shoulder, encouraging like her smile, and Helena realizes she has not taken a breath yet and sucks in a shaky, barely sufficient intake of air. It comes out again, immediately, as a sob, and she still cannot tear her eyes away from Myka’s face. Under Myka’s hand, she is trembling like a leaf in a storm.

Myka’s face is looking at something – some _one_ , in the crook of Helena’s arm, with a smile that belies the danger, the absolute imperative that this cannot be true, it cannot, cannot-

Myka’s fingers squeeze Helena’s shoulder quickly, once, twice, and one corner of her mouth curls more deeply than the other. An eyebrow comes up and a chin nods, inviting Helena, prompting her, _daring_ her to look where Myka is looking.

Helena’s ears are ringing. The back of Myka’s skull is intact und devoid of cracks, her face unblemished and free of ash – the snow came later, when she was far, far away from where Myka’s body had crumpled after-

Helena grits her teeth against the turning of her stomach, but she has not been able to stop herself from vomiting at this mental image for close to a year, and she is not able to do so now. 

She scrambles away from the warmth at her side and the warmth at her shoulder, and because she does not want to see she screws her eyes tightly shut and keeps them that way, shut while she flies off the bed, shut until she stumbles into the staircase's metal railing, shut while she makes her way down it and towards the bathroom once more.

Christina looks very close to crying, Myka thinks. She quickly extends the hand that just cupped Helena’s shoulder towards the child, and Christina takes it and clings to it. 

“What’s wrong with Mummy?” the kid whispers.

“She’s been through a lot,” Myka says, and then, as Christina looks up at her with a confused frown, elaborates, “She’s had a very difficult time while you were gone. And I think whatever happened earlier has only made that worse.” She presses her lips together. “Look, Christina, I know you’re confused, and worried, and I gotta admit I’m a bit worried too. And I’m sorry that your mom… doesn’t seem as happy to see you as you are to see her. I know she is, deep down, but I think right now she’s too afraid to think clearly.”

Christina’s frown only deepens at that. “My mother is no coward,” she says darkly. 

“Being frightened doesn’t make you a coward,” Myka replies immediately. She can hear, from downstairs, voices that had been quietened by Helena’s rush to the bathroom start their discussion again. Pete, Artie and Claudia have returned by now, and have been briefed on what has happened.

The reactions had been predictable – Artie had scowled and muttered dark implications about agents going rogue _again_ and artifact abuse, Pete had alternated between excitement and confusion, and Claudia had been speechless. That speechlessness hadn’t lasted, and the resulting discussion had turned in circles until Myka had been unable to take it any longer and had headed back upstairs to join Doctor Calder in watching over Helena. That had been three hours ago.

“Being frightened has nothing to do with being a coward,” Myka repeats emphatically, squeezing the kid’s fingers to bring the message home. “When people are very frightened for a long time, they can become exhausted, and they can react in ways that we don’t understand. Sometimes they react in ways that hurt us, even though they never would hurt us if they were thinking clearly, but they’re so exhausted and frightened that they _aren’t_ thinking clearly. Like,” Myka casts around for an example, “like, maybe you had a nightmare, a really bad one, and when your mom came to hug you, you were frightened of her at first because you were still afraid from the nightmare?”

Christina’s scowl persists, but Myka can see she’s thinking. The girl’s mouth moves, pulls to one side, presses together. “I suppose…” she says slowly. “So Mummy had a nightmare?”

“Something like that, I think, yes,” Myka says, and then holds her breath while the kid continues to ponder what she said. 

“A really, really horrible one,” Christina says, and Myka can tell she’s accepting the story when those hazel eyes land on hers, determined and no longer confused. “I should find her and offer to hold her,” the girl states, and surges out of bed. 

Myka is the one to be tugged along behind now, as they descend the stairs, and vaguely thinks that the kid is going to need new clothes – all she has is this frilly nightshirt; that just won’t do. At the bottom, though, they’re brought to a screeching halt – Artie is in front of Myka, finger in her face. “What the he- what the _heck_ happened here?” he demands heatedly, pointing at Christina. “What’d Wells do? What’d she _do?!”_

“Artie, I told you,” Myka implores. Christina has shrunk back from the old man’s anger and is pressed against Myka’s legs. “It was an accident.” She conveniently left out how Helena hadn’t been wearing gloves, how Helena hadn’t been at Myka’s side, how Helena might have, Myka fears, actively sought out and touched the Coffee Pot, or the Flute – or the Flute _and_ the Coffee Pot – of her own free will. Artie was angry enough at Helena’s reinstatement; any further ammunition would only strengthen his case, and in this particular case, Myka didn’t want him to have any ammunition at all. 

“Oh how convenient,” he spits. “How handy. That she should stumble over the _one_ artifact, the two artifacts, that would help her bring her daughter-”

“Artie!!” Myka yells to interrupt him before he says something unsavable. Bad enough that he used the word ‘artifact’. She glares significantly down at Christina’s curly head.

That gets through to him at least. “To where _she_ is,” he finishes lamely. Then his temper flares up again. “How do we even know any of this is safe? How do we know the kid is who she says she is? How-”

“Excuse me, sir,” comes a small but imperious voice from around Myka’s belt buckle. “Why would you not believe who I am?” Christina draws herself up, and even though she sees only shoulders and hair, Myka sees Helena in the motion. “My name is Christina Frances Wells. I was born on the sixteenth of May eighteen-”

“And anyone who doubts that,” comes another voice from the doorway, “can take it up with me.” Helena stands there, pale as porcelain and almost as translucent, one hand curled around the doorframe, the other at her side, balled into a fist so tight that its porcelain skin should by rights be cracked and splintered. Myka can see her grit her teeth and square her chin. Then she steps into the room, towards Artie, _between_ Artie and her child even though there’s barely a foot of space to stand in. “Is that understood?”

From where she stands, barely a foot behind Helena, Myka can see the tautness of Helena’s shoulders and neck, and almost winces in sympathy. She bites down on it, though, in favor of doing her part in staring Artie down. Helena is the same height as he is, Myka knows, and with him in shoes and her in socks he technically has the advantage over her – but her chin is haughty enough that it seems she’s looking down at him from four inches or more. 

“Oh come on, Artie,” Claudia joins in from behind, “this is really not the point here. The kid’s been with Myka and Doctor Vanessa for hours; d’you really think they wouldn’t have noticed if anything was wrong?”

“Yeah, man,” Pete speaks up now, too. “Artie, c’mon, it’s a kid. It’s H.G.’s kid! I mean, how awesome is that?” 

Lips tightly pursed, Artie brandishes his finger a moment longer, then backs off. “This isn’t over yet,” he throws over his shoulder as he sits down at his desk and furiously starts to type. 

“Oh, just ignore him,” Claudia scoffs as she rushes towards Helena. “Pete’s right, this is awe-”

Myka can see Helena shift, and Claudia falters in mid-stride. Then her eyes grow wide and alarmed as Helena sways, and Myka rushes forwards and grasps Helena’s elbow to keep her from falling. “Okay, alright, okay,” she babbles as she urges Helena towards the couch while trying not to fall over Christina, who is just as solicitous and right in front of Myka. “Alright, Helena, just sit down for a moment, okay?”

“Mummy, why is this gentleman so rude?” Christina asks. “And why doesn’t he believe who I am? Where’s Uncle Gerard or Aunt Mareille? _They_ could tell him.”

Helena laughs, a high, brittle, desperate sound that, even to her own ears, sounds as though it came from the edge of hysteria. “They’re not here, my darling,” she gets out. From the moment she crossed the threshold just now, from the moment she saw Artie Nielsen brandishing his finger at her daughter, she had known that such questions would come, that a lot of complications were to come, and that she has very little idea how to handle them.

“Did you have a really bad dream, Mummy?” her daughter asks, pressing close to her side and somehow obstructing Helena’s airways again. “Agent Bering said she thinks you had a really bad dream.”

Agent Bering said she thinks-

Agent Bering said-

Agent Bering- 

Agent Bering. 

Her daughter is speaking of Myka, speaking of a conversation she has had with Myka, throws Myka Bering’s name around as if it is the most natural thing in the world that Christina Frances Wells should have had a conversation with Myka Ophelia Bering. Then again, Myka is dead, Christina is dead, Helena herself remembers dying; maybe they are all dead here and this is some truly bizarre afterlife.

“Agent Bering is often right about things,” Helena hears herself say, from very far away. 

“Would you like some hot chocolate?” she hears her daughter ask, from about the same distance. It makes her chuckle, and the chuckle sounds just as nails-on-blackboard as her laughter had a moment ago. 

“No thank you,” she hears herself reply, “my stomach is rather tender at the moment; I’m afraid hot chocolate wouldn’t sit well with me.”

“Tea, maybe?” This is Myka’s voice and she can hear the smile in it, and the concern. 

“We don’t have a water boiler here, remember? There’s only the microwave,” Claudia rejoins with an audible shudder. “I’ll put it down to you being stressed, alright? Offering H.G. microwave tea.” Claudia cannot be dead, Helena thinks, and shudders, too.

“What is a microwave?” Christina asks, and a sob tears itself from Helena’s throat at the curiosity, the innocence, the acceptance of a child who finds herself in the weirdest of situations and simply, as Pete puts it, ‘rolls with it.’ 

Is Pete dead?

There is a hand on her shoulder again, casual and natural, warm and steady. “I bet Claudia can show you what a microwave is and how it works,” Helena hears Myka say. 

“That’s me,” Claudia says, probably with a hand raised in some kind of gesture. “You really wanna know?”

Swift movement along Helena’s arm – Christina is nodding fiercely. 

“Come on, then,” Claudia laughs, and after a brief hesitation, the warmth disappears from Helena’s side, except for that hand on her shoulder. It shifts slightly, and a larger warmth appears – Myka is sitting down right next to Helena, solicitous as always, closer than she has ever been.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll be tagging along,” Pete says, and with eyes that see again, Helena sees him scratching the back of his neck then pointing to where Claudia and Christina are headed towards the kitchenette. 

None of them appear to be dead.

It is then that Helena realizes her daughter is moving away from her, and she cranes her neck and half-rises and her knees buckle again. And then there is warmth on her thigh when Myka’s hand lands there, running soothing motions over it with her thumb. Helena tries to find the strength to stand up again, but that hand, that thumb, are both leeching her energy away from her. “She’s fine, Helena,” Myka says and Helena wants nothing more than to see for herself but her legs will not move. 

Myka sees Helena’s eyes flutter shut, as if they’re trying to contain the longing. She also feels the nervous energy of Helena’s legs, feels them twitch and strain. Her heart aches for Helena just like it did for Christina earlier. “She’ll be back soon,” she adds for good measure. “You know she’s in good hands. Claudia’s probably starting out by explaining that you shouldn’t microwave something metallic and then they’ll go and do just that, just like she did when she showed you. Remember the sparks?”

Helena’s laugh is closer to a sob than Myka could ever have imagined. She doesn’t need to check Helena’s vital signs; she can _see_ how Helena’s pulse is racing along the carotid in her neck. “Hey, Helena, look at me,” she says. Helena’s face is a rictus, staring unseeingly ahead, that haunting laugh still hanging on her lips, that pent-up energy still twitching along her muscles. “Helena,” Myka repeats. “Look at me, please.” Helena seems frozen in place; the fingers of her right hand are gripping Myka’s wrist like a vice, down in Helena’s lap, and Myka brings up her free hand to cradle Helena’s jaw, which crackles with tension when she slowly urges Helena’s head to move and look at her. 

Helena’s breath is coming in shallow, fast bursts, and her eyes are shiny with unshed tears and bright with turmoil. “I can’t-” she brings out, “I don’t-”

“I know,” Myka replies, as comfortingly as she can. “I know. It’s alright.” She runs her thumb along Helena’s cheekbone. “It’s alright,” she repeats. “We’ll figure this out. And I mean _we_ ,” she emphasizes, “because you’re not alone, Helena, okay? You’re not alone. Whatever happens, however this plays out, I’m right here, I won’t leave you alone, I’ll be right here with you, okay?” 

For the second time since this began, Helena’s eyes focus on Myka. This time, she doesn’t run, she doesn’t heave, she doesn’t pull away. Myka can see everything that’s going on behind those eyes, every ounce of what’s paralyzing Helena. “I know,” she whispers, “Helena, I know.” And because that doesn’t seem enough, she adds, “and it’s okay to feel this way, to feel this overwhelmed, this scared. It’s okay. It’s okay. We’ll figure this out, okay?”

She sees Helena close her eyes, sees lids flutter shut, sees Helena’s head sink forward so that most of its weight rests in Myka’s hand. Two tears, dislodged by eyelids, are trickling down Helena’s cheeks, one of them right along where Myka’s thumb rests on her cheekbone. Myka leans forwards, closes the gap between them until Helena’s forehead rests against hers. It is an oddly intimate gesture – Helena’s sob is a puff of air against her lips, she’s so close. Myka could kiss Helena right now; it would be the easiest thing in the world, but right now is not the moment for a kiss, not the moment at all. Helena is in a bad enough place as it is, Myka knows – this is _so_ not the moment to add yet another dimension to what Helena is dealing with. Helena has always held herself apart, and now she’s leaning on Myka – this is the moment to lend Helena strength, to be there for her, to help her deal. This is the moment to offer a shoulder – or forehead, as the case might be – to lean against. So offer Myka does, and Helena accepts; leans against Myka through a sob, a tremble, a surrender, leans and lets Myka carry the weight for a while. 

Then Claudia announces their return with a whooping “Wasn’t that awesome?” from the hallway, and Helena stirs. Myka can see Helena pull herself together, literally; can see limbs being called to order, can see thoughts being marshaled into cohesion, can see stiffness return to Helena’s spine and resolve enter her expression, and draws back her hand and her arm and her body until Helena sits on her own. They share a glance, an imperceptible query-and-answer of ‘Will you be okay?’ and ‘for now’, then they’re no longer alone, and Helena turns to her daughter and spreads her arms and Christina launches herself into them with all the abandon of an eight-year-old. But Myka is close enough to see the trembling in Helena’s arms, the whiteness of her knuckles, the terror in her eyes. This is a miracle in a place where miracles happen, a reunification a century in the making, an unexpected if undoubtedly welcomed event. Sweet and simple, though, it is not.


	4. Chapter 4

“Agent Wells,” Kosan begins the hearing, looking slightly nonplussed, “your request is… unusual.”

“I’m somewhat known for that by now, I should think,” Helena quips, to mixed reception. Then she sobers. “Mister Kosan,” she says, jaw tight and eyes downcast, “I assure you there is a reason for my requesting the presence of Agent Bering.” She shoots Myka a quick glance, then looks back at Kosan. 

“I should hope so,” an Asian-American regent with a fringe of dark hair around his bald round head says from somewhere on Myka’s right. “You didn’t _request_ her last time you appeared in front of us.” His pronunciation of the word makes it clear what he thinks of it. His sneer is barely concealed. 

Helena opens her mouth, but doesn’t reply to him, and Myka exhales the breath she’d been holding, anticipating Helena charging the man. Then Helena’s next words hit her like a bombshell.

“Regents,” Helena says almost nonchalantly, “last time I appeared in front of you, I was there to deceive.”

From the mutter that runs through the room, Myka is not the only one shocked by that statement. 

“Today,” Helena continues unperturbedly, “I’m here to be truthful. And nobody knows my truth better than Agent Bering here.” She casts another look Myka’s way, a bit longer this time and unexpectedly – apologetic?

Myka snaps her mouth shut and blinks a couple of times. 

“Agent Bering vouched for you,” says a female, middle-aged regent with piercing blue eyes, leaning forwards on her forearms. “Last time. And yet you say you deceived us back then – how are we to take your request to have Agent Bering included in the proceedings this time?”

This time, Helena fully turns to Myka, fully looks at her. Smiles, after a moment; a small, tired smile; the most unguarded smile Myka has ever seen on her face, and there is the remorse again that is beginning to make sense, but it’s a sense Myka doesn’t _want_ to understand, a sense Myka _wills_ to be wrong. “Because not only does she know my truth,” Helena says, “but she deserves my truth, too; the whole of it. And because when I look at Myka Bering, I find myself wanting to be the person she sees when she looks at me.” She holds Myka’s gaze for a moment longer, then turns to the regents again. “There were a few… impulses,” she continues, “that grew in me while I was bronzed. Anger turned into fury, resentment grew into hatred, contempt festered into revulsion. A million plans were hatched and discarded; plans to punish even further the men who had killed my daughter; plans to visit pain and death upon their families; plans to level the city of Paris in full for allowing my little girl to come to harm. And darker plans, from older times, from resentment, anger and contempt that I had carried with me even before Christina’s death. There was one thing I knew, though – if I were to implement any of them, I had to deceive you, agents and regents, fully and completely, upon being released from my imprisonment.”

Myka feels the bottom dropping out of her world with every word Helena says. She understands, now. She understands how wrong she’s gotten Helena. She also understands that she was _meant_ to get her wrong; that Helena had set out to deceive, fully and completely, regents and agents. That among that deception had been a statement, typed and signed by Agent Myka Bering, vouching for the good character of Helena G. Wells and advocating for her reinstatement.

She used me.

The thought arrives and sits and burns center stage in Myka’s mind. 

She used me.

“If I stand here at all today,” Helena goes on, “it is because among all the things I hadn’t reckoned with in the privacy of my madness, Agent Bering is the one factor that changed everything.” Again, her eyes find Myka’s, and Myka can see the bottom drop out of Helena’s world at what she sees. Part of her bares her teeth inwardly, elated at the thought that seeing how Myka is hurting hurts Helena in turn. “I’m sorry,” Helena tells her tonelessly.

She used me.

Myka looks away.

Helena lets her eyes slide shut. She was prepared for something like this, for Myka to be angry at the revelation, but to witness it actually happen, to see the pain and fury and _betrayal_ in Myka’s eyes, hurts more than Helena has foreseen. She swallows it down and turns back to face the regents. “I have brought the computers that I have been using,” she says in a matter-of-fact voice. “On them is information enough to verify what I’m about to tell you; either directly or through Agent Donovan’s admirable skill with these machines.” She clears her throat and goes on, “You will also find that I have worked hard to stop my plans in the last two days. There should be no consequences of what I set in motion beyond a bit of a sunburn for three archeology students.”

She tells them everything. About Warehouse 2. About the Minoan Trident. When the blue-eyed, auburn-haired regent asks what Helena intended to do with the Trident, Helena’s throat closes up. Unbidden and unwanted, the image appears in front of her inner eye again; the image she has been trying to suppress every single time she has looked at Myka in the past two days, with varying degrees of success. 

She opens her mouth, and no words will come out. 

She tries a few times, growing ever angrier at how fishlike she must look. The same regent seems to be saying something, but the roaring in Helena’s ears precludes her from hearing it. 

Then, “If I may,” Myka’s voice cuts through to Helena. She sounds resigned, and her eyes do not quite meet Helena’s as she steps in front of her and puts her hand on Helena’s shoulder. “This has worked before,” she tells someone hovering behind her, “me holding her shoulder and talking to her. It calmed her down. We’ll see if it works again.” She looks back not-quite-at Helena. “I said I wouldn’t leave you alone,” she tells Helena’s cheekbone, or perhaps her ear. “And however angry I might be, and believe me I am plenty angry, I’m sticking to that.” Her hand squeezes, once. “So tell me – what did you want to do with the Trident?”

 _‘So, what?’_ is what Helena hears instead. _‘The entire planet is subject to your judgment now? What about the millions of mothers who are going to lose their daughters, just like you lost Christina? Is that right?’_

“This is no world for a child.” She said it then, and she repeats it now, even as she knows, on some level at least, that her child is safe at the Bed and Breakfast, in Leena’s care, in a room that appeared out of nowhere just like Christina did. 

It is a conversation that has replayed itself in her thoughts often enough that she knows her part by heart. The room’s walls have faded, replaced by sun-dappled woods and a pebbled creek bed and Myka standing in front of her, gun pointed and unwavering.

 _‘I don’t think you believe that,’_ she hears Myka, not yet with a hole above her brows, say.

“I do,” Helena whispers. “Watch me.” Her body tenses as, with empty hands, she rams the Trident into the ground. “That was the second time, agent,” she warns. “You know what will happen when I do it again.”

 _‘You are lying to yourself,’_ Myka of the immaculate forehead says. _‘You never wanted this. If you wanted to kill Pete and me, you would have done it in Warehouse 2 or in Paris. And Artie, you would have let him die in Russia, but you didn’t.’_  
  
“I needed you to trust me,” Helena whispers.

 _‘No,’_ Myka shakes her unblemished head. _‘You needed us to_ stop _you. You wanted us to follow you and stop you. That's why you called Pete this morning. Think, Helena.’_ Her eyes, alive and sun-dappled green, burn into Helena’s, as if willing her to see a truth that Helena could not grasp then and still cannot believe today. _‘You’re so filled with grief and anger, but there is a part of you, I know it. There is some small part of your soul that knows that this is wrong and that part is still alive, and it’s just pushing to get through.’_  
  
Helena reels, empty fingers clenching around the shaft of the Trident.

 _‘That’s the part that refuses to kill the very people who can stop you,’_ Myka says. Her gun is still trained on Helena, and Helena’s stomach plummets. She knows that gun.

“No,” she says roughly, and, “Stay away from me.”

But just as she knew that gun, she knows what is coming next. Myka, healthy, heartbroken Myka, grabs her hand, the one that is not holding the Trident, and pushes the gun into it, closes her fingers around the handle and lifts it up until it is pointed right between her eyes. _‘All right,’_ she says, more calmly than she has any right to be, considering how Helena’s empty hand suddenly trembles around the gun. _‘If I am wrong, then kill me.’_

Helena tries to scoff, tries to drop the despicable weapon from her empty hands. 

_‘Do it!’_ Myka suddenly yells, hazel eyes furious with betrayal. _‘Kill me now! I mean, we're all going to die anyway, right? So what’s the difference? So, shoot me. Shoot me now. Kill me, but not like that. Not like a coward.’_ She steadies Helena’s hand around the gun’s handle. _‘I want you to look me in the eyes and take – my – life.’_  
  
Helena can see her hand in front of her face, can see that it is empty, can see the gun in it and behind it, Myka’s living, breathing face with no hole in her forehead, with no blood trickling down next to her nose, can feel Myka’s hand on her shoulder and Myka’s hand around her fingers around the gun’s handle. She does not know, out of the two, what is real and what is not; she only knows that it is imperative that she does not move her finger, not one hair’s breadth, not one iota. She sways and her hand sways with her and she cries out in alarm because she does not know if the gun she is not holding has gone off, if she killed Myka again as she has dreamed two nights in a row eleven months and three weeks and four nights in a row the little round hole in Myka’s forehead, the sunlight dappling empty hazel eyes and blood spattered on pebbles and a third thrust of the Trident and an eruption of darkness.

Myka catches Helena as she faints. She calmly lowers her to the ground, calmly gets her into recovery position, calmly smoothes her hair out of her face, calmly checks her vitals. Calmly stands up to face the regents, who are speechless. 

“I think we can all piece that one together,” she calmly says. “And I think we now know what Agent Wells lived through when she was under the Flute’s influence.”

“That woman is _mental_ ,” shouts one of the regents, in a British accent that is quite the surprise. “She shot you – you saw that, too, didn’t you. Right between the eyes, and didn’t even blink. Mental!”

No, Myka thinks, she did not blink. But you weren’t close enough; you didn’t see the devastation in her eyes. Yes, she shot me and no, she did not blink, but she never _wanted_ to shoot me and that’s worth something. Myka isn’t exactly sure what it _is_ worth, right now that everything is still reeling, but it is a fact, and Myka Bering never forgets her facts.

“Agent Wells,” says a much more welcome voice from the door, “is what her life and her choices have made her.” Mrs. Frederic strides forwards. “And that includes over a hundred years locked into her own consciousness, with the full approval of the regents of that time, which only served to exacerbate her clearly ill mental health.” She shoots a withering look at the British-sounding regent, and Myka could _kiss_ her. She’s been telling people this for weeks now, _weeks_. “We judge agents by their deeds and choices,” Mrs. Frederic goes on. “Agent Wells chose to be bronzed, that is true, but have you, have we, ever considered the alternatives she had at the time? Have we ever stopped to ask ourselves what her state of mental health must be, beyond asking her two questions about it in an interview of three hours?” She comes to a halt next to Myka, who is standing over Helena ready to fight anyone but accepts Mrs. F’s presence for the moment. “We have wronged Agent Wells,” Mrs. F declares towards the regents. “The regents of her time have wronged her, and we in the present have wronged her too. Both wrongs were instrumental in the choices that this agent has made; we cannot disassociate ourselves from that responsibility.”

The Asian-American regent is on his feet. “You have no part in these proceedings,” he exclaims, pointing his finger at the Caretaker. Part of Myka wonders why he’s so antagonistic; a much larger part of her is still too dizzy at what Helena has just revealed to care about him much.

“Consider me a character witness, then,” Mrs. Frederic says, serene as you please. 

“You barely know her!”

“No, but the Warehouse does.” In the silence that follows her words, Mrs. Frederic begins to prowl along the inside of the round table. “Are we agreed that I have a connection to the Warehouse and can speak for it?”

“Of course,” the blue-eyed regent replies, glaring at the Asian-American one. “Continue, please, Irene.” There are factions among the regents, or friction at least. Part of Myka’s brain files that away for later.

The Caretaker gives her a nod as she passes. “Thank you, Jane.” Her eyes linger on the next regent, the one with the British accent. Myka remembers his outcry from earlier, but she couldn’t say, from his current expression and posture, where he would fall if a decision was called right now. “Agent Wells has been employed by two Warehouses,” Mrs. Frederic then says to the room at large, “and has spent more time in the Warehouse than even I have. The Warehouse knows her – knows her very well indeed. When she first came into its employ, she was asked if she smelled anything, and she replied that she smelled apples. I don’t have to explain the significance of that, do I.”

Myka can’t hold the words in. “When I found her and Christina, I smelled apples,” she says breathlessly, as if running and stumbling upon the two had happened only moments ago. “Later as well, when she woke up for the first time. I remember discarding the thought the first time, and wondering about it when it happened again. I thought it might be a clue as to which artifact was in play. I definitely smelled apples.” She tilts her head at Mrs. Frederic. She would like for her to explain the significance, thank you very much. “Is that… is that a good thing?”

The Caretaker gives her one of her rare smiles. “It is a very good thing,” she reassures Myka. “It’s not a clue to an artifact, but a sign that the Warehouse is pleased.” She turns and addresses the regents again. “I would have told you the same thing if Agent Bering hadn’t beaten me to it. The Warehouse is fond of Agent Wells, and it is happy that she is reunited with her daughter after having grieved her for so long inside its walls. I was informed that a suitable room appeared in the bed and breakfast upon Christina Wells’ arrival – that would not have happened if the Warehouse didn’t approve of the developments. Just as it approves of Agent Wells choosing to come forward about her machinations and motives. Agent Bering.” She turns back to Myka, and Myka resists the urge to take a step backwards. “Would you say that Agent Wells has, indeed, given us her truth?”

She used me. 

An apologetic smile; the most unguarded one she’s ever seen on Helena’s face.

She shot me, and didn’t blink, but it was an accident and it devastated her.

A hundred years and more in bronze; grief, fury, hatred, revulsion, and anguished eyes over the barrel of an imaginary gun and anguished eyes over the head of a child the return of which Myka knows Helena doesn’t dare believe in, not even now, two days later.

Helena’s words: _when I look at Myka Bering, I find myself wanting to be the person she sees when she looks at me._

Myka’s words: _Whatever happens, however this plays out, I’m right here, I won’t leave you alone, I’ll be right here with you._

Myka chooses. 

“Yes,” she says, loud and clear and firm over Helena’s body. “Yes, she has. And she needs help.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be headed out on a road trip (in an electric car, no less!) this afternoon, so have this chapter while I have a moment, and enjoy!

Helena rises from the depths of unconsciousness slowly, as if through tar. Her ears register sounds, voices raised in speech, the contents of which do not spark any recognition in her brain. Her eyes register shapes, a person standing next to her, another standing over her – Myka. Her brain does recognize the voice and, even from this angle, the shape. And on that recognition rides a sense of what Myka is saying.

“-and she needs help.”

Someone replies something, and Myka looks down, kneels down immediately. Her eyes meet Helena’s, and they are alive, and there is no bullet wound in her forehead, there is no trail of red down her nose, and Helena dreamily reaches out a hand to trace where the blood is not.

She shivers, and from somewhere, someone reaches over some kind of garment, dark gold-and-brown tweed, a feminine perfume wafting with it. Myka drapes it over Helena’s upper body, a motion made awkward by the arm Helena still keeps aloft, the better to reach Myka’s face. 

There are traces of anger and detachment in Myka’s eyes, but as long as they are not empty on a sun-dappled creek bed, they could hold anything and Helena would rejoice. Helena rejoices even more at how Myka is not pulling away from her hand, is not looking away from meeting her eyes. 

“You’re alive,” Helena marvels. She does not know how it happened, but somehow, somehow, Myka Bering is alive. Nothing matters beyond- 

No, there is one more thing. A thing that matters even more. 

Helena breaks into a happy smile. “You’re alive, and Christina is alive,” she beams. She has no idea how _that_ happened, but she remembers holding her daughter. Doesn’t she? Her smile falters, and she looks at Myka for confirmation. “She is, isn’t she?”

Myka’s smile bolsters the one that has faded on Helena’s face. “Yes, she is. She’s alive, and I’m alive, and you’re alive.”

“That’s good,” Helena replies. A wave of contentment rolls over her, with a second wave of sleepiness in tow. She feels light-headed, and closes her eyes – only for a moment, she tells herself; only for a moment, then she will look at Myka Bering’s unblemished face again. “That’s good,” she repeats, and almost chuckles at how slurred she sounds. She is not drunk, is she? “I’m not drunk,” she maintains, just in case.

“I know you’re not drunk,” Myka replies, and there might just be a twinkle of amusement in her voice, and it lulls Helena into sleep.

Myka sits back on her haunches and faces Kosan. “I think we’re done here,” she says, willing it to be true. What other insights could the regents possibly hope to gain anymore? The look she gives Kosan is defiant. Part of her defiance is directed at the anger that’s still boiling in her gut over being played for a fool by Helena, but she’s made her choice and that means that the anger has to wait right now.

He regards her with a raised eyebrow for a moment, then lowers it and nods. “You’re right, Agent Bering,” he says and gets up and walks to the door. He opens it and talks to the guards outside, and one of them comes back in with him. He nods towards where Myka is still hovering over Helena, and the guard walks over and kneels and lifts Helena easily, with professional detachment and with the patient, solicitous hands of an EMT. Myka lets out a breath and starts to follow him, until a call of “Agent Bering!” brings her up short. 

“Yes?” She turns around – Mrs. Frederic has already disappeared as usual, and the regents stand in groups of threes and fours, no doubt already discussing Helena’s fate. All but one of them – the short, blue-eyed female regent, the one Mrs. Frederic called Jane, is standing in front of Myka. 

“If you have something in your car to wrap Agent Wells in, would you tell Mr. Upadrashta to bring my jacket back with him?” Jane the Regent smiles, and it’s warm and genuine. “I’m a bit chilly without it, to be honest, and if I’m even more honest, its style doesn’t suit Agent Wells at all, I’m afraid.” There’s a twinkle in her eye that puts a friendly twist on her words instead of an acrimonious one.

Myka blinks, remembers gold-and-brown tweed being pressed into her hand, remembers the little middle-of-the-night emergency box that all of their cars have in the trunk, nods. “Of course,” she says, adds, “Thanks,” almost as an afterthought, and hurries after Mr. Upadrashta.

Helena, now wrapped in a blanket from the trunk box, sleeps through most of the ride home, buckled into the passenger seat with her head at an unfortunate angle that Myka wishes she could do anything about. It’s a bit easier not to be furious at Helena when she’s this… helpless, this unable to do or say anything, but the churning in Myka’s gut is still anger. It’s upsetting, this push and pull of fury, pain, betrayal, compassion, disbelief, guilt, attraction, worry, doubt, care. If it was only one thing, maybe two, Myka would know how to handle it, but this? This is _chaos_ , and the only thing Myka knows how to do with this kind of chaos is to simply lock the whole mess away in a compartment inside her mind and refuse to deal with it at all until enough of its components dissolve on their own to make the rest manageable. She’s done this once, after Sam’s death; she can do it again.

When the car crosses into Jackson County, Myka is beginning to worry how she’ll get a sleeping Helena into the B&B. But then Helena stirs and Myka clamps down on her chaos and pulls to the road’s shoulder – she knows Helena gets car sick at times; god knows the woman’s been through enough, no need to add another puking spell to it. Compassion for Helena Wells has always come easy to Myka; it comes now, too, ready as you please.

“Hey,” she calls out softly when Helena’s eyes flutter open. She reaches for the small plastic bottle of water in the center console, unscrews the top and hands it to her. “Here, have some water.” Helena drinks and after a while, her motions become less sleepy, more coordinated, and Myka asks, “How do you feel?”

Helena swallows, thinks, drinks some more, thinks some more. Swallows a few times without having drunk any water. Inhales sharply through her nose and says, “Inundated.”

“Don’t drink so much, then,” Myka says before she can stop herself, and slams her hand across her mouth in horror. Of all the inappropriate times-

But Helena chuckles. Helena chuckles, and the chuckle crescendos into full-blown laughter, laughter that, she herself will readily admit, sounds just this side of hysterical, but this side is good, this side is the side that has Myka on it with her – or does it? Helena’s laughter stops abruptly at that question, and she casts a glance at Myka, whose hand has dropped and revealed a mouth hanging open. “My apologies,” Helena says then. “You must be worrying about the state of my mind after this display, but I assure you, I feel much more stable than I did when the regents questioned me about the Trident.”

“So you remember, then?” Myka asks, hand still hanging in the air in front of her chest. As if Helena noticing it makes Myka notice it too, it then curls around the seatbelt that Myka is wearing even though the car is standing still. 

Helena nods, and the last vestiges of her manic mirth drip from her face. “I remember the questioning, I remember my… episode, and I remember better now what happened and what didn’t.” She frowns. “Or rather, what happened in this reality and what happened in the… Flute’s?” When Myka nods confirmation, Helena continues, “The Flute’s reality.” The corners of her mouth drop sharply. “It wasn’t pretty,” she says. “I was glad to learn it happened only in my thoughts, although I’m afraid it will take a while longer for that knowledge to sink in.”

Myka smiles a brave little soldier of a smile at her. “I’m glad you’re ready to accept that it did happen, if ‘only’,” her fingers curl around the quotations marks, “inside your head.” Her smile blooms into a small grin that is accompanied by a blush, the kind that, Helena knows, signifies a thought coming up that, these days, apparently is classified as ‘nerdy’. “Or as Dumbledore would say,” Myka adds, “‘Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?’”

Helena smiles back tentatively. “Harry… Potter?” she ventures a guess, thankful for the lighter path Myka is steering the conversation to – it _has_ to signify a general positive lookout between the two of them; Helena is not prepared to function in a world where Myka is not willing to stand with her. Myka has promised, after all, and Myka is not a person who goes back on her promise. However, Myka has made that promise before she knew all of Helena’s truth, and so Helena feels it would be dishonorable, to say the least, to hold Myka to her promise now. 

But – a lighter path; a conversation about books that Helena knows Myka favors. If Myka’s words are meant to set Helena at her ease by offering a simpler topic to speak about, that is a comforting signal. Myka has no way of knowing that thinking of those books sets Helena’s thoughts on another, equally unbalancing path: Myka has told Helena about the young wizard Harry Potter what seems like over a year ago – _that_ part of what the Flute did to her Helena still has not quite sorted out yet: the difference in time elapsed between what she thinks and what the calendar says. Helena’s introduction to ‘the Potterverse’, as Myka had called it, happened on the flight back from Moscow; two weeks and five days ago. Helena touched the Flute two days ago, almost three now. Not eleven months, three weeks and four days. The dissonance is too close to how time both passed and did not pass in the Bronze, and Helena suppresses a shudder in favor of looking at the woman in the driver’s seat. 

Myka’s smile, unaware of the conflict in Helena’s thoughts, grows proud as she nods vigorously enough at Helena’s reply to make a curl dance that has escaped her updo. Then her smile softens, in a way that, Helena has learned over the past two days, signifies Myka thinking of Christina in a positive, unworried way. Helena is quite positive of what will come next, and when Myka starts to speak, it comes as no surprise. Again, it is a ‘lighter topic’, and again, it does not sit easy on Helena’s mind. “I bet Christina would love those books,” Myka says. “You can discover them together.” The way she smiles now is just as new – a smile for a Helena who has a daughter at her side to discover things with. A smile that, more often than not, falters at Helena’s reaction or the anticipation of her reaction – because more often than not in the past two days, Helena’s reaction has been nothing short of unadulterated panic. 

Panic rears its head in Helena’s throat now, too, but she fights it down, fights for her smile to stay on her face. “I would hope you’d consent to being our expedition guide,” she suggests, and Myka’s smile falters a little, then steadies again. Out of all the things that have blurred together from the beginning of the last two days, one has stayed with Helena: ‘You’re not alone. Whatever happens, however this plays out, I’m right here’, and a hand on her shoulder and a hand around her jaw, and a serious, anxious, unguarded face between the two. 

The thought raises a new, and at the same time not-so-new conundrum, though. 

“Myka,” Helena says, smile gone now, remorse and fear thick on her tongue, “how can you ever forgive me?”

Myka takes a deep breath. To be fair, she’s seen this question coming from a mile away, has been waiting for it all the way from the regents’ meeting. To hear Helena voice it now, to hear how she barely seems able to get the words out, to see how her eyes barely seem able to meet Myka’s – it tugs at Myka’s heart and tries to persuade her to let go of her anger, but another part of Myka stubbornly clings to it. Helena hurt her, betrayed her, kicked away the foundations of any trust between them. Killed her, if only in her head – but that doesn’t mean it’s not real. Killed her by accident, yet another part of Myka reminds her. 

She shuts them all down, bans chaos behind its door.

“I’ve been wondering about that myself,” she says, and unfurls her hand from around the seat belt to reach out and cover Helena’s with it. She can do that, she tells herself, and she tries for both her hand and her voice to not be aggravating. To judge by how Helena flinches, though, that attempt isn’t very successful. “Don’t get me wrong now, okay?” she goes on quickly. “When I say I’ve been wondering about it, I do mean exactly that. I’ve been thinking about what you’ve done, and about what you haven’t done, what you stopped doing, and I’ve been thinking about what’s been done to you. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking for a three-hour drive,” she adds with a low, self-deprecating laugh. 

She has done a lot of thinking, has careened from anger to heartbreak to feeling betrayed back to anger again so wildly that she wonders if emotions can give you whiplash. 

Before today, Helena had been a tragic figure ( _my daughter, my Christina_ ) and Myka’s favorite author who turned out to be a woman ( _Neanderthals_ ), breathtakingly beautiful, devastatingly flirtatious, and endearingly enthusiastic about ( _and then you affix them to objects – aces!_ ) finding herself in the future ( _I have no tether here_ ). 

Now Helena is also someone who planned to destroy the very world she’d seemed so excited about, and Myka has no idea how to reconcile the two, or her feelings about either of them. Right now, in this car and unable to look at her, Helena looks scared and lost, so Myka’s compassion wins out again. But it’s a close thing, and her chaos is still bubbling away behind its door.

Myka squeezes Helena’s fingers slightly – cold as ice, as usual. The Bronze, Helena has explained. Over a hundred years with nothing but your thoughts, no, your _pain_ for company, your anger, your chaos. A hundred years! Three hours in a car and Myka is sick of _her_ thoughts; she cannot imagine what condition she’d be in if someone bronzed her now and she’d have nothing else for company for a century. She’d hope for a compassionate reception by whoever was around her after that, she knows that much.

“From where I stand,” Myka therefore goes on, “what I see is that you struggle. That you were struggling before you were bronzed, and while you were bronzed, and that you’re still struggling now. I know now that you planned to do awful things, and I’ve known for even longer that you’ve done some pretty awful things before you were bronzed. And after, you killed MacPherson; although to be fair, I’m not too sad about that,” Myka adds for the sake of full disclosure, “seeing as he threatened and almost killed my parents. And, you know, I can tell myself that you weren’t in your right mind doing all these things.” She takes another deep breath. “But with me? Everything you said to me, everything we did together – were you in your right mind doing those things? Did you do them because you enjoyed spending time with me, or did you do them to deceive me? That’s the one question that I can’t answer: how much of what we did together was genuine, and how much was you trying to manipulate me?” She taps her forefinger on the back of Helena’s hand. “So I’m asking you, right here and now: how much? What was what?” 

Helena stares at her, struck speechless. Her lips shape around the beginnings of words, and close again. 

“Do you even know? Do you remember? Can you tell them apart?” Myka asks, and her anger, the anger she tried so hard to keep at bay, to be noble about, her anger breaks free of the compartment and spreads into her voice, and probably her eyes too. Helena flinches again, and Myka’s compassion doesn’t want to add to Helena’s load, but Myka’s anger has found its way out and it’s running free now. Compassion keeps her hand where it is, but it’s a close thing.

“I…” Helena begins, and swallows again. She’s trying, Myka can see that. Helena is trying, and that reins the anger in a little. “It does sound too pat if I say that I started out wanting to manipulate you and then found myself unable to, does it not?” Helena says at last. Her eyes drop to Myka’s hand covering hers, and Myka can see the little frown between her eyebrows. Christina has inherited it, and Myka hasn’t stopped being amazed that she knows this now, that she has met Christina, that Christina is alive and well and in the twenty-first century – but thinking about Christina makes Myka’s heart yearn for Helena and her daughter and their happiness, and that’s not what her anger wants right now. So she disregards the frown, but it’s a difficult thing. “I… do not think it was quite that,” Helena goes on, “not quite one way or the other with a clear distinction in between. There were times when my behavior towards you was very much genuine, and times when it wasn’t, and times when, in hindsight, I truly despair of telling which was which.” She huffs a short, bitter laugh. “Unfortunately, I do not have your memory for details and situations. I cannot call them up like photographs and point to this behavior or that conversation and say, ‘this, _this_ is where I meant it, where every word I said was true.’” Her voice drops to a whisper, and a muscle in her cheek twitches. “I am sorry, Myka. I wish I could.”

Myka swallows and nods. “I… I thought so,” she says. “And I’m trying really hard to not ask you to go through every single word you ever spoke to me and ask you if you meant it, for that very reason.” She exhales a sigh. “Just… just tell me one thing,” she asks, looking at their hands and trying very hard to not sound like she’s begging. “Just… the… this… um, this _thing_ between us. Was that real? Is that real?”

Because that is also who Helena G. Wells is: on top of being the recipient of the dirty end of the stick in pretty much everything before being bronzed, on top of being megalomaniac enough to plan to end the world after being bronzed, Helena is someone who Myka is very much in love with, and that doesn’t just add to the whole chaos of the situation, it throws a completely different light on it. If only it would make it easier, though – but it doesn’t; it makes it so much worse. 

Myka has realized how she feels about Helena, feels _for_ Helena, in fits and starts over the past year, has discovered it like assembling a puzzle that only reveals itself when you step back and look at it from a distance – in this case, the distance of hours spent worrying past-Moscow, about Helena possibly back in bronze and beyond reach for the rest of Myka’s life, the distance of a few steps across Artie’s office as Kosan calls out ‘Miss Wells’ and announces her reinstatement as an agent, the distance of a ‘thank you’ and a very proper handshake and a smile-

“Yes,” the answer comes even before Helena looks up at Myka. “Yes, Myka, it was, it _is_ , and I am beyond sorry I made you doubt-”

The rest of what Helena had possibly wanted to say remains unspoken, sealed into Helena’s airways by Myka’s lips that land on Helena’s slightly ungraciously, slightly crookedly, slightly – but only slightly – hesitantly. It is brief, that kiss, and Myka pulls back before Helena can hope to respond, frowning and unable to meet Helena’s eyes, fumbling at her seat belt with erratic fingers. “Christ,” the younger woman mumbles to herself, “Christ, Bering, _ask_ next time, just ask; you can’t just _kiss_ someone witho-”

And the rest of what Myka had possibly wanted to say shall remain unspoken as well, sealed into Myka’s airways by Helena’s lips now, Helena’s lips that descend with just as little grace, just as little gainliness, just as much trepidation – for all her bravado, all her flirtations, this, Helena knows, this is different. Her heart has never beaten so painfully, so hard, so high in her throat as now; her thoughts have never been so hopelessly a-jumble, her fingers never so clumsy as they tremble over Myka’s hairline, trace an escaped curl, try to coax it back behind Myka’s ear. “Very, very real,” she says helplessly, breathlessly, vainly trying to call her thoughts into order. 

“Good,” Myka replies in a peculiarly strangled voice, “that’s… that’s good.” She swallows harshly and pulls back. Helena’s hand drops to the center console, and Myka’s hands continue to curl around the seat belt and strangle the hapless strip of fabric. “We… I think we should talk about this, before we go on.” Her eyes are apologetic, but determined –this is Myka Bering Doing What Is Right, and Helena has no hope of persuading her otherwise, she knows that full well. “I mean, you’re in one hell of a tangle right now, and I really don’t want to make it more complicated than it already is, you know? I’m not saying,” she adds quickly, possibly because she’s seen the panic rise in Helena, “I’m not saying that I’m abandoning you or anything. That’s the polar opposite of what I’m doing, okay? Even if I’m still mad at what you did, I am still in your corner. Yours and Christina’s. Don’t think I’m forgetting about her.” One of her hands finds Helena’s again and links their fingers, in a gesture that’s as heartening as it is new, a gesture that Helena could revel in for the rest of… at least for the rest of this drive, if not longer – if that drive ever gets re-started. Myka Bering is still on her side, still in her corner. This fact alone makes Helena’s breathing come more easily. “All I’m saying is that adding…” Myka blushes, frowns and looks aside, “um, physicality, I guess you could call it, to the equation right now… I don’t think it’s what we should be doing.” She breathes deeply, once, twice, collecting her thoughts in all probability, and adds, “If affectionate gestures – you know, a hug, a friendly hand on your shoulder, that kind of thing – if that helps you, I’m… I’m here for that. I think. The kissing, though…” her eyes alight trepidantly on Helena’s, and Helena thinks she understands. 

“You think that kissing, and I assume other gestures more erotic than affectionate in nature, are not going to be helpful at this point,” Helena offers therefore, based on what she thinks she understands, and is rewarded by being right. 

Myka nods, swallowing again, then clearing her throat. “Yeah. Yeah, that, and…” her eyes drop again, flit this way and that in the small space of a car’s cockpit. “And I totally can’t handle them right now. I really can’t.” She bites her lip and adds, “When you kissed me just now, I…” she blinks and shakes her head and looks at the car’s ceiling. “Helena, there’s so much going on right now,” she breathes, “so many things to figure out. Not just for you, for me too, you know? I mean I thought I loved you, but right now, because of what you did, I just don’t know who it was that I fell in love with – you, the thought of you, a part of you, a front that you played? And if I can’t trust my judgment about who I fall in love with, can I trust any of my judgment anymore?” She sounds bitter, and angry, and hurt, and all of those emotions are in her eyes as well as in her voice when she goes on, “I’m angry as hell about that; I’m furious at what you did, at how you tricked me, how you played me,” she emphasizes this with a short, fiery glance up at Helena, whose heart freezes in her chest at the words, the glance. “I really don’t want us to take things there when I’m not done figuring out how I’m going to handle that, okay?”

Helena tries in vain to make sense of Myka’s words. There was a declaration of love in there, she most assuredly heard it, but it was in the past tense and she is unable to determine if there is even the slightest chance of a present tense for it anymore. But Myka has told her, only seconds earlier, that she was still on her side. Myka has asked her, only minutes earlier, if ‘this thing between us’ had been real, and Helena had said yes – what more can she do to explain; what more can she do to reassure Myka? Her confusion must show on her face – Myka suddenly groans. 

“Christ,” she mutters under her breath again, “of course.” Myka settles her shoulders into the seat, sits up straighter – much like a professor preparing to lecture. Helena’s confusion, and subsequent apprehension, mounts. “Helena,” Myka begins, “one of the things that’s changed a _lot_ since Victorian times is how people approach… oh, I don’t know, emotions, relationships, that kind of thing, you know?” Her free hand leaves the seat belt to its own devices and gesticulates. She hasn’t withdrawn her other hand from Helena’s, though, and Helena tries to find solace in that. “Okay,” she goes on, biting the inside of her lip for a moment while her eyes dart here and there again; not from embarrassment this time, Helena can see, but from an attempt to bring order to her thoughts. “Okay, so…” Myka says slowly, “so, um, basic stuff, I guess – first off, you’re allowed to have emotions these days, you’re allowed to talk about them, you can even base your decisions on them, okay? We’ve figured out that it’s not healthy to suppress them all the time, so that’s one thing.” She runs a hand over her hair and exhales sharply. “Mostly, anyway,” she adds, “some people still think… but they don’t matter. In terms of relationships,” Myka goes on, “there’s… there’s far less of a script these days. There isn’t a, a, a fixed process of steps you follow from being introduced to each other to, I don’t know, marriage or whatever. It’s much more of a… a negotiation, I guess, of what both people – or more than two for some people – of what they’re comfortable with, you see?”

Helena has no trouble following that last part. It seems eminently more sensible, so she nods. It wins her a lightning-fast smile. 

“Okay, so, right now, I’m not comfortable with the idea of… um, erotic gestures, as you called them. I’m not saying I won’t ever be – Lord, am I _ever_ not saying that. Um.” Myka blushes profusely and clears her throat, and Helena has no trouble understanding that, either, although for the life of her she does not know what Myka’s assertion might mean in the greater scheme of ‘this thing between us’. 

It does help her breathe a bit more easily again, though. 

“But right now,” Myka goes on, “right now when I look at you I don’t know if I want to strangle you or kiss you or hold you because you’re so lost and hurting, or just… or just take a step back so that _you_ can figure out what’s going on in _your_ life. You know?” Helena blinks. No one has ever spoken this forthright about their emotional conflict to her. This must be what Myka just claimed. It feels decidedly odd, almost too intimate; too much information on something that Helena is utterly unsure how to react to. It does help her understand the struggle she can see in Myka’s eyes, though, and that, she figures, is a good thing, so she nods once more. Myka does, too, and continues, “So, what I suggest is, we tackle this whole figuring out thing. I figure out the things I need to figure out, you do the same. And some things we figure out together; you, me, Christina too. I mean we are talking,” and suddenly, Myka laughs out loud in surprise, “we _are_ talking about a relationship here, aren’t we, somewhere down the road?” She buries her head in her hands and groans. “We actually are talking about a relationship.” Then her laughter stops and her hands drop and she stares at Helena in sudden apprehension. “We are, aren’t we? Please tell me that’s what we’re doing. Please tell me I haven’t made a complete and utter fool of myself.”

“May I employ an affectionate gesture?” Helena asks in return, and when, with a good deal of trepidation, Myka nods, Helena reaches forward and takes both of Myka’s hands in hers. Firmly. Very firmly, and Myka grasps them back. “I do believe we _are_ talking about a relationship,” Helena says, firm and soft at the same time, firm as her hands, soft as the place in her heart that’s Myka’s. Her words are genuine, even though this is unlike any exchange she might have had about such things in the past, and she is very much at sea for how to actually conduct this conversation. But this is not the past any longer, as Myka has so emphatically explained. People talk about their emotions these days. And if Myka wants to talk about her emotions, that means there are emotions to be talked about. And if Myka wants this to be a conversation about a relationship, there is hope yet that these emotions are positive ones; there is hope yet for a present-tense declaration of love. “Somewhere down the road,” she repeats Myka’s words, because she does understand the need to, as Myka puts it, figure things out, even if she cannot see yet how she will go about that endeavor. “I can hardly believe the thought,” Helena adds and does not disguise the tremor in her voice, “but I do believe that is what we are doing.”

“In a car, in the middle of nowhere.” Myka shakes her head and laughs, a little wildly, a little shakily. “I’m talking about a relationship with H.G. Wells in the middle of fracking nowhere, South Dakota.”

“Indeed you are,” Helena says and, feeling emboldened, adds, “my dearest Myka.”

Myka’s eyes close as if in supplication and she laughs again, with another low invocation of the Lord’s name. Then she looks back at Helena. “We gotta talk about stuff like that, too. PDAs, I mean, public displays of affection. Ideally in this car, in the middle of nowhere. Because at some point, I gotta restart this car and get us to the B&B, and we’re gonna have to be around people; people who, I might add, have teased me about you for longer than I…” she stops and blushes again, then continues, “for longer than I even realized there was something to tease me about.” She sighs, closes her eyes, and shakes her head. “Pete will have a field day,” she elaborates. 

“If he catches us,” Helena feels emboldened enough to point out. 

Myka snorts another laugh. “If you seriously think that he won’t know what’s going on the moment he sees me and you, you massively overestimate my poker face when it comes to you,” she says dryly. “ _That_ has been pointed out to me multiple times, by a surprising number of people.”

Helena inclines her head in acceptance. “I daresay my ability to hide my attraction to you is equally underwhelming,” she admits. “If I interpret Claudia’s looks and intimations correctly.”

Myka withdraws one hand and pinches the bridge of her nose, laughing again, just the one short burst. “Jeez,” she breathes softly. 

“We could simply tell them that there is an understanding between us, and leave it at that,” Helena suggests. “If that is an expression that still will be understood,” she adds.

“Oh it will be,” Myka assures her from under fingers that still pinch her nose, “just possibly not the way we mean it. I mean at this point _I’m_ not even sure how we mean it. And this is Pete we’re talking about.” She casts Helena a wry glance, they share a smile, and for a moment, one blessed moment, it is as if nothing bad, no treachery, no ill-gotten plans, have ever come between them. “God, I want this,” Myka breathes. “Don’t get me wrong, I could really do without all the chaos, and I am not looking forward to the not-easy stuff, the hard stuff, the figuring things out and all of that. But this? The banter, the flirtations, the give-and-take?” She points a finger between them. Then her face falls, and Helena burns with remorse once more. “Please tell me that was genuine,” Myka asks, with renewed trepidation in her voice. 

“It was,” Helena says immediately. “It always was, and I have always enjoyed it, too. And I hope I will continue to be allowed to do so,” she adds with bated breath. “If… Myka, if you find you cannot live with what I did to you, I couldn’t blame you, not one iota. Betraying your trust was inexcusable and you being furious with me its inevitable outcome. If what I did costs me this; the banter, the give-and-take, the,” she swallows with difficulty, “the flirtations, I would completely understand. I lost my right to them the moment I set out to deceive you. They were and are most, _most_ dear to me, however, and I will do whatever is in my power to return to where we can engage in them again.”

Myka slowly nods. “That’s a solid basis to work from, I guess,” she says. And then she holds out her hand.

Helena tilts her head, unable to suppress a smile. “Are you asking me to shake on it?” she asks. 

Myka simply nods, and Helena’s smile gives way to earnestness. She takes the proffered hand and shakes it, with all the solemnity the decision demands. 

“Thank you,” Myka says, and _then_ she smiles. It is unsteady and small, and the hope in it is battered from all sides, and Helena returns it in kind.


	6. Chapter 6

Yet when they come home, there is no time for talking, no time for negotiations: despite Helena’s attempts at calling them back, the archeology students have found and activated Warehouse 2, and Artie is waiting with two plane tickets in his hands – one for Pete, one for Myka. 

“But-” Helena protests. Surely she has the most current information on Warehouse 2 of all of them, does that not count for anything?

Myka shakes her head at her warningly before Artie even opens his mouth, and catches a glare from him for it. “You don’t honestly think the regents would let _you_ go _anywhere_ right now?” he asks Helena, with a redoubled glare when she still draws air to object. “Besides, don’t you have a child to take care of?” His delivery cannot be called gleeful; he is too professional for that and Warehouse 2 too large of a threat, and yet he cannot seem to forego this barb.

Helena snaps her mouth shut and glares at him in return. 

Leena chooses this moment to chime in. “Christina is in bed and hopefully asleep,” she informs Helena in a much more civilized voice. “It was a bit of a fight; she wanted to be up when you arrived, but in the end I convinced her that there was no knowing when that would be.” 

Helena’s smile is apologetic. “I’m sorry,” she says. “And grateful for you watching over her,” she adds, with a truer smile. Then she turns to Myka, and tries to swallow the lump in her throat. “Go,” she says softly. “Go, and come back safely.” She will not, cannot say more – her composure is half in tatters as it is. 

Myka takes a long look at her and finally nods. Then she addresses Artie and Leena, and Pete who is hovering in the kitchen doorway, already with a bag in his hand. “I’d planned on doing this a bit differently,” she says, and over the course of her following words, Helena’s blood runs cold, “but at least this way it’s in front of witnesses. Artie, if anything should happen to me, I consider Helena my next of kin, alright? You will inform her without delay, you’ll give her access to every bit of information, to my hospital room, _everything_. And if _you’re_ prevented from doing it, you’ll instruct someone else to do it in your stead. I don’t think I’ll have time to properly put all of that in writing, so this’ll have to do.” She gives Artie a quite impressive stare-down. “I assume this _will_ do?”

Artie looks thunder-struck, but finally he nods. “Yes,” he grumbles, “yes, alright.” Helena knows he will be true to his word – it is the kind of person he considers himself to be – but still she has trouble drawing breath. “Now go and pack,” he barks, turning away, “the plane leaves in two hours.”

Leena gives Myka and Helena a reassuring nod, which Helena takes to mean that if Artie does create any trouble over this, they will have the innkeeper on their side. Then Leena, too, turns and leaves.

Helena tries to take heart in Leena’s support, but cannot shake the feeling of doom that seems to have settled over her at Myka’s words. If anyone knows the dangers of Warehouse 2, it is her, after all. She deeply regrets that she took all of her research with her this morning, both paperwork and computers, and handed it to the regents – Myka could make good use of it now, Helena is certain of that, but as things stand, Myka will have to make do without it. The mere thought of that is upsetting enough, and to top it all off, ‘If anything should happen to me’ reverberates over and over in Helena’s ears. It hangs over their exchange of banalities while Myka packs, over their goodbyes, over their final hug and awkward kiss. “Go, and come back safely,” Helena repeats in a whisper directed at the receding tail lights of Pete’s car.

When Myka arrives back three days later, Leena is at the door, wringing her hands. Myka’s heart plummets. 

“What’s wrong?” she shouts, barely out of the car. 

“Myka, I’m-”

“What’s _wrong?_ ” Myka repeats, already pushing past Leena. She mutely points upstairs to where their bedrooms are, and Leena nods. Myka takes the stairs three at a time. 

“It’s been so much,” Leena calls out, hastening up the stairs behind her. “Too much – Claudia couldn’t handle the situation with Mrs. F, Helena couldn’t handle being afraid after she heard about Valda, and Christina couldn’t handle how everyone couldn’t handle things, and then she got a cold on top of-”

And with that, Myka is through Helena’s bedroom door, barely taking time to knock. 

Helena is in the middle of the bed, rocking a sleeping Christina with all the liveliness of an automaton. Christina's face is pale and tear-streaked, and the room shows signs of a tantrum, although by whom Myka is at a loss to decide. She rushes towards the bed, squarely into Helena’s line of sight, and starts talking in a low voice. From the corner of her eyes, she sees Leena withdraw and shut the door. 

“Helena, hey – hey, I’m back, okay?” she says as she kicks off her boots, not looking and not caring where they fall. “I’m here, and I’m whole, and Pete’s okay too and so is Artie.” She kneels on the mattress, hands out and low and reassuring. “Yes, it was dangerous and yes, we lost Mr. Valda, but the rest of us are okay, see? Helena?”

A tremor runs through Helena at last, and her eyes meet Myka’s, red-rimmed and glassy. Her fingers tighten around the fabric of Christina’s nightshirt, and Christina shifts in her sleep, and Helena’s gaze drops immediately to make sure her daughter hasn’t woken up. “Myka…” her voice is a shell of its former melodiousness. Her eyes fill, and Myka wonders how much, how long, how hard Helena has cried to look and sound like she does. 

“I’m so, so sorry,” she says. Her eyes, too, grow blurry with tears. “God, Helena, I’m so sorry.” She shuffles forward, clumsy and painfully aware of sleeping Christina between them as she wraps her arms around Helena. 

Helena starts sobbing – quietly, because she, too, wouldn’t wake her daughter for the world, Myka knows, but that just means that her sobs rack her body all the harder. Her knuckles are still white around Christina’s nightshirt’s shoulders, and Myka thanks all the deities of every pantheon known to humanity that Christina is such a heavy sleeper because noise isn’t the only thing that can wake a person up. 

She keeps whispering ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I’m okay’ and ‘I’m here’, and has no idea how to adequately convey any of those three facts to Helena, no idea if Helena even hears her. 

Helena does not remember much of the night before when she wakes up the next morning. She knows that Myka has returned, safe and sound; she knows she has slept longer than she has in a year – more than two years, her brain is still insisting, even if she keeps telling it it is wrong – from the light that slants in through the curtain; and she knows that Myka and she, as the current parlance goes, ‘have to talk’. She lies still for a moment longer, trying to enjoy the nearness of both Myka and Christina – for once, her body is not equating an embrace with the petrifying bond of the bronze – but her roiling thoughts drive sleep from her brain as assuredly as coffee would. 

She disentangles herself from Christina, who would not wake if a thunderstorm poured down on her, and from Myka, who is sleeping the exhausted sleep of the severely jet-lagged, and heads to the bathroom for her morning ablutions, and to the kitchen for coffee and, not to put too fine a point on it, breakfast for the first time in three days. 

Leena quietly hands her a tray, and begins packing toast, jam and peanut butter, granola, yoghurt, fruit, and a few oatmeal muffins onto it, as well as two thermos mugs of coffee and one glass of milk. Helena cannot help her stomach’s growling at the sight. It makes Leena laugh softly, and that sound in turn lifts Helena’s sprits. Helena has never appreciated the innkeeper’s quiet, pleasant care more than this morning, and knows what she has to do next.

“I’m sorry for how poorly I reacted,” she apologizes. “Thank you for… keeping it together while we all fell apart.”

Leena’s laugh slides into a lopsided smile. “We all had a hard time,” she says, “you more so than most. Don’t worry about that now.” Her hand lingers for a moment on Helena’s over the tray’s handle. “Actually, I’d like you to think, really think, about yourself and your needs right now, and about how you can serve them. Listen to Myka, but think about yourself as well, okay?”

“I have Christina to consider, first and foremost,” Helena says, a bit stiffly, and Leena nods instantly. 

“Of course,” she says, enviably at ease. “But kids adapt much more easily than grown-ups do. And having a mother who takes care of her own needs will be more helpful to Christina in the long run than a mother who holds back because of what she thinks or fears or projects that her daughter might need, when all that that daughter needs is a mother who’s happy, or at least emotionally stable.”

Helena blinks as she works her way through that sentence. Even when she has gathered Leena’s meaning, she finds it hard to accept that what the young woman says is an acceptable approach. Then she remembers Myka’s reassurances in the car, that things have changed. “I… suppose,” she says, still dubious, and Leena smiles at her again and sends her on her way with a pat on her hand. 

Christina is awake within the hour, and she and Helena take the tray to Christina’s room for breakfast, leaving a post-it note behind – which Christina adores as much as Helena does – so that Myka, when she wakes, will know where they have gone. 

“I’m glad Agent Bering is safely back,” Christina says after downing a muffin and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in record time. Helena thinks to herself that it is beyond time to talk to Myka about how Christina addresses her – ‘Agent Bering’ sounds wrong for what Myka is to Helena, and to what she could be to Christina. “You were so worried about her, weren’t you, Mummy?”

“I was out of my mind with worry, love,” Helena tells her quite solemnly. “She holds a special place in my heart, much like you do.”

Christina’s eyes grow wide and joyful; for the first time in two days, they are not glazed with fever, even though Christina’s voice still carries traces of congestion when she asks, “Like Caturanga and Sita? Or Uncle Gerard and Aunt Mareille?” 

Helena once again realizes that her daughter is too shrewd for her own good. Not only is Christina aware that out of all the couples she has known, these two loved each other the most – Charles’ and Jane’s marriage had always been more of a business merger, and Sarah’s marriage to Ethan had held no happiness whatsoever. So, not only does her daughter recognize true love, but… 

Helena certainly never made it a secret in front of Christina that she was attracted to women the same way that at other times she was attracted to men, but for Christina to go from accepting that fact to anticipating this about Myka and herself – eagerly anticipating, what is more – makes Helena tear up once more. 

She dashes a quick hand across her eyes, somewhat exasperated at her seemingly unending capacity for tears in recent days. “Yes, love,” she replied. “Exactly like that.”

“And-” Christina’s excitement falters a little. “And do you have a special place in her heart too?”

Suddenly short of breath, Helena finds herself nodding wordlessly. She is reasonably sure, she tells herself, reasonably sure enough to answer her daughter in the affirmative, even if there have not been repeated declarations of love yet. 

“Aces!” Christina beams. “Are you going to get married, then? Can two women get married now?” She puts on a worldly, knowing face and declares with a sniff that has nothing to do with a head cold, “I never understood why they couldn’t back in our day, Mummy.”

Helena cannot help but chuckle. ‘Back in our day’. It seems that Leena was right – Christina adapting is not the problem. Yes, there have been a few wobbles, a few tears, when Christina learned they would not see Wolly, Caturanga, Sita, her aunts and uncles and none of the other family members ever again, and Helena does not doubt that there will be more in the future when the reality of where and when they are now sinks in further. If Christina enrolls in school here, there will be an enormous gap between her and her peers, and not just due to British and American English. 

It is precisely such things that Helena wishes to talk about with Myka, only in a much larger context. 

When Myka joins them another couple of hours later, therefore, Helena is hard-pressed to allow the younger woman to drink her coffee in peace. 

After about half her cup of coffee, Myka notices how antsy Helena is – there’s no other word for it. Helena can barely sit still for a _second_ , and it’s exasperating. So she sighs, puts her thermos mug down, and asks, “What is it?”

Helena shoots a quick glance at Christina, but obviously decides that what she wants to talk about is fit for the kid’s ears, because she leans forwards, fingers clenched around a folded-up napkin. “The last few days were… difficult,” she begins.

Myka bites her tongue. Something glib is not the answer Helena’s looking for. “I understand,” she says, “and I’m sorry.” She’s been doing some thinking of her own, has come to a few conclusions of her own, but she can also see Helena’s need to talk this through with her. 

Helena accepts her apology with a half-hearted nod. “Difficult enough to wonder, in fact,” she says carefully, and it sounds almost rehearsed, “how I will handle similar situations in the future.” Seeing Myka draw breath, she adds quickly, “I don’t mean to ask you not to go on retrievals anymore – I would never.” She bites her lip for a second, as if steeling herself, and then forges on, “However, I find myself in need of a way to deal with worrying about your safety, a way that doesn’t consist of alternately freezing and unraveling in the privacy of my bedroom, to the horror of my daughter.” She huffs a darkly self-deprecating laugh. “Which is all I’ve been doing for the past three days.”

“Mummy was very sad,” Christina adds helpfully and just a tad reproachfully.

“I know,” Myka tells her at once, “and I’m very sorry that worrying about me made her so sad.” She turns slightly, addresses both of them now. “Which is why I have a suggestion that could help matters – not necessarily help you find a way to deal with your worrying, but something that should ensure you have less to worry about in the future.”

Helena blinks and narrows her eyes. “Are you… what are you suggesting?” 

“Well, I could stop-”

“Absolutely not,” Helena protests hotly, sharply enough for Myka to know that Helena was anticipating such a suggestion. “You are a phenomenal agent, and it means the world to you. I will _not_ have you-”

“If you would let me finish,” Myka interrupts her with a small smile, not even a bit remorseful about not letting Helena finish in turn, “I’d be able to tell you that I’m not talking about leaving the-” she stops herself. Christina doesn’t know about the Warehouse. “I mean, my job,” Myka amends, “forever, you know. It’s called a sabbatical. A year, or other prolonged period of time, of-”

“I know what a sabbatical is,” Helena says waspishly. She pinches her eyes shut and inhales sharply through her nose. “My apologies.” Her eyes, when she opens them again, are softer than they were. “That was quite brusque. Please do go on.”

Myka smirks at her. “It’s just that I was thinking,” she says, “that it makes sense for all of us to not be in the thick of retrievals and artifact business while we find our feet.” She takes a deep breath before continuing, “For me, I need to rebuild my trust in you, and that’s easiest done if I’m around you consistently, instead of dashing off who-knows-where to snag, bag and tag who-knows-what. And for the two of you, I think it would help you arrive here, figure out what to do with yourselves, if there was a bit of distance to… you know. If there was a bit of normality.” And if you don’t have reason to worry yourself sick for the lives of your loved ones, Myka doesn’t add but knows Helena hears regardless.

“I couldn’t ask you to-”

And again, Myka finds herself interrupting Helena. “I know you couldn’t ask; I know you’d never ask. I’m offering.”

“What about your career, though?” Helena asks, sounding almost desperate. “What will you do, if not this? Return to the Secret Service?”

Myka shakes her head immediately. “I’d be put out in the field again,” she says, “which wouldn’t be much different. Certainly not less dangerous.”

“Then what would you do? I’d hate to think of you wasting your considerable talents as a… a homemaker.”

Myka snorts a laugh at this. She can’t help herself. “Welcome to the twenty-first century,” she says dryly. “Those aren’t my only options, you know. I mean, not that homemaker isn’t a viable one for those who want it,” she adds conscientiously, “but one, I don’t, and two, someone’s gotta earn money, and I think I’m a bit better set up for that than you are, right now anyway.” She takes the muffin that Christina has left over, winks at the kid, tears off a piece and eats it. “I can just as well work in a bookshop again. Done that for years, after all. Or I could teach. Or consult on cases, out of the line of fire. If we both find part-time work, I could get a post-grad degree.” She shrugs, then smiles at Helena. “ _You_ could go get a degree,” she says. “Engineering. Literature. Both, even.”

Helena sits there, open-mouthed and silent as she analyzes what Myka has said. “I… I could, couldn’t I,” she says finally. A slow smile spreads across her face, and she can see Myka’s face light up in turn. 

“You could go to Cambridge, Mummy,” Christina chimes in, beaming even more widely than her mother. “I bet they take female students now.”

“Oh yes, they do,” Myka says emphatically. “They have female professors, too.”

“Aces!” Christina squeals, loud enough to make both Helena and Myka wince. “Can I go as well?”

“Well, you need to go to school first,” Myka replies, “but after that, sure you can.” She grins and ruffles Christina’s hair. The gesture does not go over well. 

“I am eight, Agent Bering,” Christina admonishes. 

“And kids of eight go to school, not university,” Myka says with an equanimous shrug and the small, crooked smile that Helena loves so much. “And do me a favor?” She points at the three of them, the bed they are seated on, the sheer informality of the setting. “This is not an ‘Agent Bering’ context anymore. Call me Myka, okay?”

“Okay,” Christina says, a smile – albeit a smaller one – back in place. 

Helena looks on in wonder. There have been times – very rarely, when the thought was not too excruciating to even consider – when she has wondered if Myka and Christina would have liked each other, had they known each other. Never in her wildest dreams, though, would she have imagined the easy rapport between the two of them. Granted, some of Christina’s wobbles and tears had been directed at Myka, too, and outside of wobbles and tears Christina has always been an easy child to get along with, but-

Myka is offering Christina a piece of muffin, ostensibly hiding that fact from Helena by offering it behind her thermos mug. Christina’s eyes go wide and delighted at the subterfuge, and she very studiously looks anywhere but at the hand behind the thermos as she picks the piece from Myka’s fingers. Myka then addresses Helena, tells her about universities in the US to distract her, so that Christina can put the piece into her mouth without her mother noticing, which of course Helena does regardless.

It makes Helena’s throat constrict, makes her breath stop short, makes her heart stutter. 

This could be every morning. 

The enormity of that thought has her feeling faint. 

This could be every morning from now on. Breakfast, banter – home. 

The regents have not handed down their verdict yet, though.

That thought comes crashing into the morning like a rhinoceros.


	7. Chapter 7

The regents’ verdict arrives four days later, along with the first shipment of crates from Egypt and a very disgruntled Arthur Nielsen. 

“Here,” he says brusquely, pushing a thick brown manila envelope into Myka’s hands as they cross paths at the loading bay. Then he stops, sighs, purses his lips and points towards the door. “I guess you’d better take this to her immediately,” he adds. “No point keeping you here with this burning a hole in your pocket.” He frowns when Myka doesn’t move. “What are you standing around for?” he growls. “I just gave you the rest of the day off. Pete would be halfway to Univille by now. Go! Go, go, go!”

Myka is halfway to Univille before she starts wondering if Artie even knows what’s in the envelope, if he knows what the regents’ judgment is. She keeps casting glances at the brown, inscrutable envelope on the passenger seat. 

Christina is at the door when Myka’s car pulls into the B&B’s driveway – eager as a meerkat and just as vigilant. “Myka!” she calls out when Myka is close enough. “What a pleasant surprise!” 

Myka grins. Christina sounds like she’s having a tea party – the kid actually loves them; she really, truly does. Myka has a standing invitation and has managed to take part once. It was a harrowing experience; she’s never felt as out of her depth in the B&B before, not since the very first week of working here. From ‘no, you cannot _possibly_ sit there’ to ‘but you’re holding the tea cup all wrong’, it was worse than the brief experience of Sunday school Myka’s had in her tweens before, luckily, fencing practice started filling up her schedule and made her parents take her out of other activities.

“I’ve got something for your mom,” she says, brandishing the envelope. “Is she there?” The question is justified: forbidden from entering the Warehouse, Helena has started to help Leena around the house, up to and including grocery shopping forays. 

Christina nods, though, and races ahead of Myka to the sun room. “Mummy, it’s Myka!” Myka can hear her holler. Etiquette is all fine and good, Myka supposes, as long as it’s Christina calling the shots and not a grown-up reminding her of indoor voice and indoor speed.

Myka is pretty sure that Helena has an idea of what her arrival in the middle of the morning means. Sure enough, she can hear Helena exchange a few words with Leena and Christina, before she appears at the sun room’s door, alone and immediately nervous. Her dark eyes fall to the envelope, and her hands clench around the ends of her scarf. “The regents?” Helena asks hoarsely. 

Myka simply nods and gestures towards the kitchen, further away from Leena and Christina. “Let’s go sit down,” she suggests. There’s been a… truce, in a way, between them – Myka is still angry, but the aftermath of their retrieval in Egypt has convinced her to swallow it for the time being. Helena and Christina have enough on their plates as it is. On top of that, Myka worries that if Artie, and through him the regents, get wind of her anger, her feeling of betrayal, it might influence them to… do something unthinkable. 

At least the wait for _that_ decision is over now. 

There’s a pot of tea still hot on the counter. _Tea party paraphernalia_ , Myka thinks, and pours two cups. Helena sits at the table, envelope untouched between her hands. She looks up as Myka sets the cups down. “It’s possible I’ve never been more unnerved by a letter before,” she says weakly. 

Myka empathizes deeply. Beyond her own misgivings about the regents’ decision, she vividly remembers getting the final report on Sam’s death. This is one envelope that _shouldn’t_ land in a fireplace, though. “D’you want me to open it?” she offers. 

After a moment’s hesitation, Helena gives a shaky nod, and Myka takes the envelope from between her hands. It’s heavy and solid – at least forty pages, she’s estimated already in the car, maybe fifty. Myka has no idea what on Earth could blow up a simple ‘Yes, you’re allowed to return to Warehouse service’ or ‘No, we’ll punish you’ to four dozen pages, but – nothing for it but to open it and find out.

What slides into Myka’s hands is a single sheet of letter paper, and a folder that looks like- “Financial reports?” she marvels. She puts them aside, though – the letter is what contains the pertinent information, she knows. She holds it out to Helena, but Helena shakes her head, looking nauseous.

“‘To whom it may concern’,” Myka reads out loud and rolls her eyes inwardly at regent pomposity. She skims the next few lines, muttering a few words here and there. Then, “Here,” she pounces. “‘We have come to the conclusion that Helena G. Wells-’,” she stops and looks up at Helena incredulously. “Not even the _regents_ know your middle name?” 

Helena grits her teeth. “Will you _please_ go _on_ ,” she begs.

“Sorry! I’m sorry!” Myka says immediately and drops her eyes to the paper again. “‘-that Helena G. Wells is an important asset to the Warehouse and should, therefore, continue in its employ. We hereby reinstate her as an agent and clear her for-’,” she glosses over the description of agent duties in favor of looking back up at Helena with a smile. Helena simply motions her to continue reading, and Myka has to admit she’s right – there’s a lot of text still to come. She looks back at the paper; a word draws her gaze and she reads on with a frown, “‘-on the condition that she undergo psychological evaluation and treat-’”

The chair clatters and the mugs rattle as Helena shoots up. “Never,” she spits. “Never!”

“Helena, what-”

“Over my dead body,” Helena insists, stepping back from the table, arms wrapped around her midriff and eyes glaring at the letter that Myka has dropped to the tabletop.

Myka gets up and steps around to her – carefully, as if handling an injured animal. “Helena, I don’t-” 

The eyes Helena turns on her _burn_. There is no other word for it. “They tried this before,” she spits. “When they… before I was bronzed.” Spasms run over her face, and her jaws work so harshly that Myka fears for her teeth. “They wanted to put me in Bedlam!” she shouts out, gesticulating wildly with one hand while the other keeps its hold of her waist as if it’s the only thing keeping her from flying apart. “I will not-” Helena chokes on the words, on the thought, and Myka, who now understands what’s going on, has to stop her. 

“Helena, stop, please, listen to me, okay?” Her hands are out, palms downwards, her voice is low. Textbook approach, because part of her brain will always supply the textbook approach for any situation that _has_ a textbook approach. “You’ve seen how far science has come, right? You’ve been on a plane. You’ve seen MRT scans. You’ve seen modern movie effects. You’ve seen all these things, right?”

Helena nods. Her face is still stony, though, and her eyes almost accusatory. 

“Okay,” Myka continues, still calm, still non-confrontational, “now think about what you remember from back then, from Victorian England. People flying? Absurd! A machine that can look right through a person and map their brain activity? Unheard of!”

“I had heard of Wilhelm Röntgen,” Helena maintains in a surly voice, but Myka knows it’s mostly for show. 

“I know you have,” she agrees readily, “and I know you remember how cutting-edge his ideas were at the time, enough so that some people believed he was a magician. And now think about how far medical science has come, how far _all_ areas of science have come.” Myka takes another step towards Helena. She’s close enough now to reach for Helena’s hand, and does so. Helena doesn’t resist, but she does look away from Myka’s gaze. “The same is true for psychology. Part of you realizes that it _has_ to be true, even if you haven’t seen proof of it yet.” She tugs at Helena’s hand to release its stranglehold on the scarf around Helena’s neck. “I can only imagine how scary the idea of being put into Bedlam must have been,” she says quietly, “and I totally can’t fault you that your mind jumped there and made you reject it flat-out. 

“But, Helena, please trust me when I say that this isn’t what they’re talking about. Not at all. Okay? That stuff they used in Bedlam? Shackles and stuff? That isn’t done anymore, because we know it doesn’t work; actually it’s forbidden, because it violates a person’s dignity.” She can see in Helena’s eyes that Helena is nowhere near convinced, though; in her eyes and in her stance, one arm still wrapped around her waist and her shoulder slightly turned against Myka’s approach. “I’ve gone through mandatory counseling and psych eval,” Myka says even more quietly, and Helena’s eyes fly towards her briefly, startled and questioning. “After Sam died,” Myka elaborates. She’s never mentioned him, but Helena nods brusquely, and Myka remembers that MacPherson briefed her on the Warehouse agents, back when he unbronzed her. She swallows the anger that rides on even just thinking MacPherson’s name, and continues, “And while I sure wasn’t happy that I had to, I did it, because it was standard procedure. And it wasn’t great, because they’re understaffed and underbudgeted and everything, but it did help, because they do know their job. And I’m sure it’d help you too.” 

It’s the wrong thing to say – Helena’s mouth pulls into a grimly ironic expression and she pulls her hand back, takes a step sideways that takes her out of Myka’s reach. “That’s what they tried to assure me of back then. A common refrain throughout the ages, it seems.” She glares darkly at the kitchen floor, but at least she isn’t leaving.

Still, Myka winces. “I get that. I totally understand that; I understand why you’re worried. I mean I wasn’t alive back then, but I’ve read enough to know what kind of a massive fuck-up Bedlam was.” The unexpected expletive works – Helena looks up at her in slack-jawed surprise. Myka tries to maintain the eye contact and goes on, “There are laws and regulations these days about what doctors can and can’t do, and most importantly, Helena, what rights the patients have. Except for the harshest of situations, you can walk out of any facility, any session, at any time, because your agency matters.”

“Talking with Claudia has led me to believe otherwise,” Helena says stiffly. 

Myka sighs. She’d been afraid this’d come up. “Yeah, I know. Those harshest of situations I meant just now? What she’s been through is a perfect example of those, including the fact that she was underage _and_ had no-one in her corner to advocate for her against that kind of treatment. But, Helena,” she reaches out for Helena but doesn’t make contact, “please don’t let one bad example of an extreme situation spoil the rest of it. As I said, I can give you an example too, from closer to the other end of the spectrum.” She drops her arm and moves back a bit, not wanting to crowd Helena or seem too pushy. “Just… just think about it, okay?” Then something occurs to her, and she adds, “Or look things up. What kind of therapies are available; their ethical underpinnings, everything you want to know to help you make an informed decision. We can look things up together, if you like.” Helena is still frowning, and her hands are twitching as though they’re longing to push through her hair – displacement activity, soothing activity; Myka knows it well. “And really,” she continues, for real pleading now, “please, please please please, I _don’t_ want you to think I’m pushing you into this against your will. I’m not. I’m backing off, okay? What I am saying is that I know you’re hurting. If you had a toothache, I’d suggest going to a dentist for help. If you’d dislocated a joint, I’d suggest going to an orthopedic specialist. With your mind hurting as it does, I’d suggest you go get professional help for that, but that only works if you trust those professionals, and I can totally understand why you don’t, so I’m backing off, okay? I’m leaving it up to you.”

A second goes by, three, seven. Then Helena nods. She still doesn’t meet Myka’s eyes, but at least she’s nodding. “I will look into it,” she says and it sounds as though she’s biting off every single word against her will. 

“Okay,” Myka says quietly, determined to make true what she said and back off now, let Helena figure this part out by herself as much as she wants to. “Thank you.” Then she casts a glance towards the table. “Do you want to look at the rest of it? At all? Later?”

Helena sighs an almighty sigh and straightens her shoulders. Her eyes touch on Myka’s briefly, then settle on the stack of paper on the table and widen in recognition. “Oh,” she says and picks them up, leafing through them quickly and lingering on the final pages. Then she looks back at Myka. “Does…” It comes out croaky. She clears her throat and tries again, “Does the regents’ letter say anything about my financial assets?”

Myka blinks in surprise. She retrieves the letter and reads the part that comes after the psych eval bit, and yes, there is something in there. “‘All non-artifact assets and belongings that were held or managed by the Warehouse are to be released into Agent Wells’ control’,” she reads, “‘immediately and unconditionally.’” She lets the piece of paper sink and stares at Helena. “What… what does _that_ mean?”

There is a hint of a smile on Helena’s face. It is a peculiar mix of bitter and fond, sad and ironic. “It means that my… net worth, I believe you call it these days, is as of now higher by exactly one hundred forty-seven million, six hundred and eighty-four thousand and three hundred ninety-six pounds and,” she looks down at the folder in her hands again, but Myka could swear it’s just for show, “sixpence.”

Myka’s jaw drops. “You…” she says weakly, blinks, swallows, continues, “You, uh… what now?”

Helena’s smile finds strength in Myka’s confusion, and, truth to tell, Helena herself finds strength in the folder in her hands and what it stands for. 

Money is power. Money is independence. Money is security. And this money is hers, indisputably, immediately and unconditionally. 

Unconditionally must mean it does not matter if she undergoes the wretched psychological evaluation and treatment – _that_ is only a condition for further employment as an agent. She takes the letter from Myka’s unresisting hands and skims the text for the pertinent parts, then nods in affirmation – that is exactly what the letter says. 

This money is hers, to do with as she pleases. And from how she understands this age’s financial commodities and values, it is ample and more than ample for her, Christina – and Myka, if Myka so chooses. 

“I am rich, Myka,” she says, enjoying every syllable. “And my control of my financial assets is not contingent on _anything_. Not on my remaining an agent, not on my remaining in the Warehouse’s employ, not on my agreeing to any psychological evaluations or procedures.” She cannot keep a note of triumph out of her voice or a glint of the same out of her eyes as she hefts the folder. “I had a few assets that still remained under my control aside of this,” she says, “but nothing quite as… comfortable.”

Myka gives an incredulous chuckle. “Comfortable? _That’s_ the word you’re using here?” She eyes the folder in Helena’s hands as though it is a bomb about to-

Helena stumbles, and the folder lands on the table with a splat.

“Helena!” Myka is at her side in two long strides, hands at elbows lending strength. “Helena, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

Helena leans into her and tries in vain to smile. “Just a… an inopportune thought at an inopportune moment,” she says and tries to straighten up. “I’m alright, darling, thank you.”

“You’re not,” Myka says flatly. “You’re shaking.”

“Then perhaps I simply _want_ to be alright,” Helena snaps, more harshly than she wants. She tugs one hand loose of Myka’s hold and runs it through her hair. It _is_ shaking, but she would rather wash the inn’s floors for a week than admit that.

Talking, _thinking_ about Bedlam has shaken her much more than she would readily acknowledge.

Myka seems to catch some of that, because she steps away after a moment. 

Helena immediately misses her proximity and the feeling of steadiness that came with it. She picks up the tea cup, wills her hands to be steady around it, and takes a sip. She pulls a face. “Cold,” she says, and uses the act of walking to the sink to pour it out as welcome reprieve to pull herself back together. 

When she turns around again, Myka is still standing at the table, arms slung around her waist. “Helena, it’s okay to have feelings,” Myka says, quietly and without looking at Helena. “You know? Even bad ones. Fear, worry, anger, sadness. It’s okay to feel like that.”

Helena huffs a bitter laugh. “They’re weaknesses,” she says almost indifferently. 

A crooked smile flits over Myka’s cheek. Its bitterness is worrying. “Yeah, many people think like that. Not just in your time,” she adds, “even today, still.”

“Then they’re probably right, wouldn’t you say?”

“No.” The word is straight, flat, immediate, and accompanied by a flash of anger in hazel eyes. 

“No?”

Another flash of anger, and a smile that is less bitter and more of a challenge. “I wouldn’t have thought that you of all people would agree with something just because ‘everyone says so’,” Myka says and Helena bristles. 

“I do not-”

“But you just did.”

Helena snaps her mouth shut so hard her teeth hurt, and inhales through her nose. “Being emotional equals being hysterical equals being better off behind a barred door in Bedlam,” she says, willing her voice to be calm and collected. “That is how I grew up; that is the reality women faced in my time, especially women who saw injustice in how they were treated by men.” She turns stiffly to the water kettle and goes through the motions of refilling it. “So you will excuse if my life has taught me a different lesson than yours.”

She is in the process of putting the kettle on the hob when a hand lands on her back. She flinches, and the kettle clatters against the glossy surface. She stills it with a white-knuckled grip, and a hand appears and covers those knuckles, slides down them in a soothing caress. “I know,” Myka whispers next to her. “Helena, I know. And I’m sorry. I keep making assumptions, keep expecting behavior from you that you… that’s different from what you’ve learned. I’m sorry.” Together, they put the kettle safely on the hob, then Myka takes a small step back again and Helena realizes that this is not Myka distancing herself from her, this is Myka ‘backing off’, ‘giving her space’, as the expressions go. Helena turns on the heat with fumbling fingers, and Myka lets her, and she is grateful for it. 

Helena turns and leans against the stove, and Myka scowls and pulls her a step forwards, fluttering ends of scarves safely away from hobs that heat up so much more quickly than, still, Helena is used to. And again, Myka takes that step back, standing at arm’s length – close, but not within Helena’s personal space. Not that Helena would consider skin-on-skin with Myka being too close within her personal space, but that is another matter. “I would like to apologize as well,” Helena sighs. “You’ve been nothing but supportive, and I… jump down your throat, isn’t that how you put it?”

Myka laughs a little helplessly. “Yeah, that’s how we say it. But, I mean, I understand why you did it, so apology accepted.”

“As I accept yours.” They smile at each other for a moment. 

“So…” Myka begins, leaning back against the countertop and crossing her arms. “You’re rich, huh.”

Helena’s smile turns proud. “All of it earned through wages and smart investment decisions,” she says. “Not mine entirely,” she amends, “I did employ the services of investing companies. I have to say, though, that their performances quite exceeded my hopes.” 

“So how does the Warehouse come into it?”

The memory softens Helena’s smile. “It was Sita who taught me how to invest my first wages, what to look out for, how to read the market and the news. She also knew which investment firms were amenable to working with women without trying to defraud them. Later, when…” she grits her teeth for a moment before continuing, “when I knew I would be bronzed, I asked her and Caturanga to look after my assets. Since none of us knew if and when I would ever be debronzed, Caturanga offered to put my investments into the Warehouse’s books, along with rules on how to handle them. And since,” she smiles fondly at the recollection of Sita’s haranguing, “you should never put all your assets in one place, I split them and gave the rest to four investment firms she’d recommended. One of them went bankrupt in the 1920s, as I’ve since discovered, but the others flourished, and so did the money they managed for me. Nevertheless, I would not have thought-” She frowns and picks up the statements again, goes through them with more attention than the first time. Her frown deepens when she arrives at the beginning. “There are entries here that… seem unusual,” she says, tapping a particular line. “Money was entered into my account, if you want to call it that, after my bronzing. Twice a year from 1900 till mid-1946, with amounts ever increasing until they simply stop.”

“In 1946, you say?” Myka asks, small frown of concentration on her brow that is proof that her curiosity has been piqued. “And I assume it doesn’t say who it’s from?”

Helena shakes her head as she skims the rows and rows of figures. “I do not see any explanation,” she says, frustration tingeing her voice. 

“If it stopped in 1946, maybe Charles had something to do with it?” Myka muses. “Is there a date on those entries?”

Helena looks at the columns and nods. “Early May and early November each year,” she says. “The last one being May of 1946.”

“Charles died in August of 1946,” Myka says, “so he wasn’t alive in November that year. If he put money in your accounts, the stopping date would make sense.” She tilts her head to the side, eyes looking into the middle distance. “Royalties, possibly? How were royalties paid out back then?”

Helena’s eyes grow wide. “Twice yearly,” she rasps. “Charles and I had… he always wanted to give me a share of the income he derived from his – our – books. I used to tell him that I did not want his money; by then the Warehouse was paying me quite a substantial wage that was enough to support Christina and me; _he_ used to insist that I had earned it.” The folder slides from her fingers back onto the table and she huffs a laugh, caught between exasperation and a deep, lingering sadness. “It seems that after my bronzing he felt safe enough to go through with it after all.”

“Royalties from H.G. Wells novels?” Myka marvels. “No wonder your account is as big as it is. Did he… did he know of your bronzing, then? It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” she adds quickly, “just because I’m curious doesn’t mean you have to answer my questions.”

“Oh, but this one is an easy one to answer,” Helena says with a fleeting smile, still vacillating between the two emotions regarding her brother. “Yes, he knew. Warehouse agents of my time were allowed to tell one person in their lives about their activities, and I chose to tell Charles.”

“He was your one,” Myka breathes and nods, “of course he was.” 

“Of course he was,” Helena echoes. “Christina was too young, and none of the other people in my life were close enough friends to be even remotely aware of what I was doing – except for my colleagues, of course.”

Myka nods again. “So he knew you were alive, with the prospect of being unbronzed sometime.”

“Correct,” Helena says with a sigh. “I had left a petition with the regents, to be unbronzed at a time when humanity was… better than it had been.” She shakes her head with a little frustrated toss. “Either they forgot about it or did not deem the present to fall under that requirement.”

Myka reaches out but stops just short of touching Helena’s arm. “Just so you know,” the young agent says, “I’m glad MacPherson unbronzed you. I know, I know,” she adds, withdrawing her arm again and raising her hands, “I know you’re having a hard time, but I can’t be unhappy about you being here. I can’t.”

Helena casts her a shaky smile, which Myka reciprocates in kind. For a moment, there is peace between them. 

Then Myka looks at the folder, and the moment is broken. “You know,” she says, “I _have_ wondered if the Warehouse has some kind of financial management somewhere. I highly doubt that all of its expenses come out of the federal budget; would make it too easy for people to follow the money and find out too much. Also, how would it work when the Warehouse moves?” She shakes her head. “Nah, I thought, there has to be something else.” She huffs a laugh and whistles under her breath. “I’d have never guessed, though… I mean, one hundred and forty-seven _million_. And here I’ve been wondering how we would support ourselves if you wanted to go to university somewhere.”

Helena raises her eyebrows, and the corners of her mouth come up with them. “You have?”

Myka rolls her eyes before returning Helena’s smile. “Of course I have,” she shrugs. “Contingency plans. If you do want to get a degree, which college or university is the best in your field, what’s their tuition fees, what’s housing cost in that area and are there good schools where affordable housing is, are there scholarships, could we-”

“Hold on, hold on,” Helena protests with an embarrassingly breathless laugh, “you…” her smile falters slightly as she regards Myka. “You really have, haven’t you.”

Myka reaches out a hand, and this time Helena takes it without much conscious thought. Myka’s smile turns impish. “I might or might not have made several lists,” she says, and the tips of her ears turn pink. “Including one with questions like, would you rather study or live in the US or in England; things like that.”

“That does seem like a substantial question,” Helena allows. “And while England will always feel more like home to me, I have to admit that I breathe more easily at the thought of being able to turn to you for help with government matters, which I could not, or not to the extent necessary, if we lived in a country that you, too, are unfamiliar with.” She sighs, drops Myka's hand with one final squeeze, and casts a glance towards the sun room. “Besides, I fear that returning to England, at least now, might confuse Christina – it’s easier to digest that you’re in the future, that things look different and _are_ different, when among those things aren’t recollections of your childhood.”

Myka’s expression lights up with understanding. “Like when you returned to England for MacPherson,” she ventures. 

“Indeed.” Helena tilts her head back. The water kettle sounds as though it will be done soon, and the thought of tea is soothing. “It was… unbalancing,” she admits. It does not come easy, regardless of Myka’s reassurances that such matters can be discussed in this day and age. This, she hopes, is not too emotional of an admission. “Among all the other off-kilter things, it was the most difficult to deal with,” she continues. “Places that I knew suddenly looked differently, streets that I had grown up on suddenly ran different courses, things that I understood suddenly worked differently – and in amongst them, and almost worse, were the things that were still the same as they had been. I had not anticipated the toll that took on me.” She busies herself with preparing the teapot to escape Myka’s eyes. 

“I keep thinking how hard those first few weeks must have been for you,” Myka says quietly, still leaning against the countertop, long legs outstretched halfway to the table, one foot balancing on the toes of the other. 

“Yes, well,” Helena breathes, turning back to the stovetop to retrieve the water kettle. “Life can’t all be fun and gallivanting.”

There’s a long silence behind her. When she turns around, kettle in hand, Myka’s eyes are bottomless. And then-

And then Myka pulls herself together and lets Helena prepare a new pot of tea, turns talk to lighter, safer topics as if she knows, on some level, that her earlier foray was as far as Helena could take it today.

Helena considers herself a very rich woman indeed, in far more than monetary terms.


	8. Chapter 8

Evening finds Helena reading a good-night story to Christina, and Myka alone with Pete in front of the fireplace.

“So Helena’s okay, then?” Pete asks. “Regents aren’t going to, I dunno, put her back in the bronze again or anything?”

“Yes and no,” Myka sighs. “No, they aren’t going to punish her or bronze her,” she scoffs at the thought of them trying, “but they are putting her through mandatory counseling if she wants to be an agent again.”

Pete blows air out. “I bet _that_ went over well.”

“As well as you can imagine from someone to whom ‘psychological facility’ means manacles and forced re-conditioning.”

He nods. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” They both stare into the fire for a while. “And…” he hesitates. “And if she doesn’t want to be an agent again?” He very pointedly _doesn’t_ look at Myka.

Myka hums. “We haven’t really made any decisions yet,” she says. “I kinda laid out what options she has; some of them at least, but I don’t know if she took me seriously. I don’t know if she really, truly realizes all the things she could do if she wanted to.”

“Yeah, but… but what do _you_ want?”

Myka blinks. “What do you mean, what do I want?” 

Pete sighs and finally turns to look at her. His eyes are very, very vulnerable. “Mykes, I…” he rubs the back of his neck. “I know you… you like her. And the kid. Like, a _lot_. So if she… I don’t know, if she decides she wants to set the record right on who H.G. Wells really is, and scarpers off to good old Britannia… what are you gonna do?”

‘Follow her’ sits at the tip of Myka’s tongue, but there is that very, very vulnerable look in Pete’s eyes. 

He picks up on it anyway. His eyes grow stricken for a fraction of a second, then she can see him pull himself together with an almighty effort. “Wow, Mykes, you got it _bad_ ,” he tries to joke, but it falls flat. 

“Pete, I-”

“No, Myka, I get it.” He finds a smile for her. “I mean you can’t have been around the two of you for almost a year and _not_ get it. And hey hey hey,” he points a finger gun at her, “who knows, she might decide she’s better off as an agent among agents, am I right?”

Myka rubs her hands across her face, and his face falls. “I’m sorry, Pete, but…” she says quietly, and she is sorry for torpedoing his attempt to make light of things. “You didn’t see her after… after Warehouse 2.”

He snorts a soft, agreeing laugh. “Yeah, Leena told me a bit of that. And I get it, I really do. I mean I’m a guy, but I can put myself in other people’s shoes, and if I imagine being in hers… and then you…” He sighs and flops back into the couch. “The shitty thing about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is you can’t even be mad at them.” He presses his lips together in mock frustration. “Can’t even be mad at her for stealing you away, no matter how much I want to.” He shakes his head in best Marlon Brando fashion. “If that’s what happens, anyway. I mean with Lady Cuckoo, who knows.” 

“Please don’t call her that,” Myka entreats him. “I mean she knows – Christ, we all know – that she has… issues. But that’s hard enough for her to accept even without you…” Her voice drops away and she gestures vaguely.

“Sure.” He nods, then adds, “Sorry.”

“No harm done,” Myka says. “You didn’t say it in front of her. If you had, I probably would have had to kill you.”

Pete draws back a little. “You know, when you say stuff like that, I never know if you’re serious or not. I mean your punches – man.” He gives a mock wince.

Myka casts him a long, sidelong look that’s calculated to play into his pretend apprehension. They both dissolve into smiles after a moment, though, and Myka falls back into the couch, too, and nudges his shoulder with hers. “If that happens – and as I said, there hasn’t been any decision yet – I definitely wouldn’t miss you at all.”

“Psshh,” Pete replies dismissively, “you think _I_ would miss _you?_ ” He shakes his head. “For real though,” he says after a moment, “you’re right. I don’t see how… I don’t see how she could… you know. Be an agent. With all her baggage. I mean she’s pretty badass and everything, and if she was alright, she’d be great at the snagging, bagging and tagging, but she isn’t alright, is she.”

Myka exhales slowly. “No,” she says in a very quiet voice. “No, Pete, she isn’t. She’s good at pretending, but there hasn’t been a night that I haven’t heard her have nightmares, not a night that I haven’t heard her walk around her room at all hours-”

“Jeez am I ever glad my room is far, far away from yours,” Pete mutters. 

Myka shoots him a quick grin which falters when she ponders Helena’s troubles. “I thought I had a really good read on her,” she says, fingers worrying the end of one of her curls, eyes staring blankly at the fire. “Before… you know.” That’s how she’s been thinking of the time she’s known Helena – ‘before when Helena told the regents’ and ‘after’. Two different times, two different Helenas; but only one Myka, who has no idea how someone so close to her was able to fool her like Helena did, and no idea how to handle all of that yet. Beyond compartmentalizing it, which she’s good at, but not good enough. “Before that, I thought I knew her,” she goes on. “Turns out she’s really, _really_ good at pretending, so good she duped me too.” With a bitter laugh, she quotes Pete’s words back at him, “Yeah, sure, sometimes people surprise you. Sometimes they surprise you in a good way. But sometimes they surprise you in a bad way, so bad that you don’t know who they are anymore.” She sighs; a big, heavy one right from her heart. “Pete, did you ever…” she has to ask. If only for her peace of mind. “Did you ever… like, get a vibe on her?”

He inhales deeply, and his eyes slide close. Then he says, “Not really, no,” and his breath comes whooshing out with the words. “I asked myself the same thing, you know,” he adds after a moment. “Could I have known? Should I have known? Was there something that I ignored, a vibe, a gut feeling? I mean I didn’t trust her as much as you did, but I also didn’t _dis_ trust her as much as Artie did, so I thought… right up until she said she had to talk to the regents, I thought I’d got her down, you know, middle ground and everything. I thought I’d wait for a couple retrievals longer, see how she handled herself in them, get a better idea of her MO and stuff, but it never came that far.”

“So no vibe then?” Myka asks for confirmation. “Not a good one, not a bad one – nothing?”

“Nope,” Pete sighs, the p exploding from his lips. “The only vibe I got – and that wasn’t a vibe-vibe, that was just a… a gut feeling, a hunch, you know? Was that she was into you. I mean anyone could see the way she looked at you. Or see you blush. So that wasn’t a vibe, really. I wish…” he leans forward and turns to look at her. “Hey, Mykes, I get it, you know? I get why you go over all the details now, wondering ‘why didn’t I see this coming’.” The look he turns on her is sharp, serious, scrutinizing. “Don’t do that, okay? You threw that report into the fire; the one about Sam. This is the same kind of thing. Don’t… don’t start second-guessing everything. I mean I know you’re probably doing it already anyway, but I want it on the record,” and he pokes his finger into the palm of his other hand, “ _on the record_ , that I’m advising against it, in the hope that for once you’ll listen to me. Because I’m right, and you know it, and I want to be able to tell you I told you so.” 

Myka laughs weakly. “The report? That was three _years_ after the fact, Pete, _years_. This has barely been a week.” Of course he’s right about the second-guessing; and of course he’s right that she shouldn’t do it. Part of her knows it even now, part of her is telling herself ‘I told you so’ all the freaking time, but that part is far too small to stop her from doing it anyway.

“Well, I hope it’s not going to take you three years to come to your senses this time, that’s all I’m saying,” Pete retorts. He’s silent for a moment, then, almost timidly, he asks, “Was what she planned really that bad?”

Myka hasn’t told him much about the interrogation, about Helena’s confession. She simply, mutely nods.

He blows air out softly. “But, I mean,” he says then, “she didn’t do it, right? She tried to stop it, she _did_ stop it, only those kids were already too close.”

“Pete, she tried to bring about an ice age that would have killed all of civilization as we know it,” the words burst out of Myka. “What am I supposed to – _how_ am I supposed to deal with that?”

Again, Pete sits on that for a while. Then, again, he leans forwards, towards her, intent. “Okay, but here’s the thing, Myka – remember what you told me on our flight back from Egypt, during the layover in Dubai?”

“Qatar,” she automatically corrects him. 

“Yeah, whatever. You do remember, though, right? You remember everything anyone ever said to you, you gotta remember that bit, too. You said she said some really good stuff about truth and, and that she’s a better person around you, something like that. Right?”

Feelings well up in Myka, trying to engulf her. Of course she remembers. “But don’t you see?” She stares at him, then shakes her head. “That’s exactly what I mean – how do I deal with that? From what she says, I’m the only thing that stopped her from creating a fucking _ice age_. I mean I don’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to relationships, so what happens if I screw this up? If I get it wrong and break her heart, what’s she gonna do, unleash a deadly plague upon the world in her anguish?” This time when she laughs, it sounds wild. “What kind of… of responsibility is that to have hanging over you? How am I supposed to handle that? Pete, how?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says, hands at shoulder height. “Stop that right now, partner. The only one responsible for how Helena handles anything is Helena herself, okay? I mean yeah, you’re responsible for doing your part in not messing things up, but that’s where it ends, okay?” He keeps his eyes on her a moment longer, then sighs and looks at his fingers. “I get it, Mykes,” he goes on. Then he pauses and shrugs. “I think I do anyway. I mean I look at Kelly and I think ‘what if I start drinking again and disappoint her and hurt her?’” He sighs again and rubs his face. “Not exactly the same, I’ll admit that, but hey, what matters is that we all are a bit messed up in some way, okay? We all have our baggage to deal with. I’m sure as hell that H.G. is scared shitless too, of doing something that’ll hurt you, that’ll drive you away.”

Myka groans. “Not helping.”

“No, hear me out, okay?” he goes on, staring at her intently. “She’s afraid, you’re afraid, I’m afraid – everyone’s afraid. Everyone who has someone and who’s just the slightest bit human is afraid of fucking it up with that someone. But, Myka, I’ve seen you when she’s around, when things were easy, and I’ve seen _her_ with _you_ around, too, and I’m not gonna lie, I’ve thought to myself ‘I want that too,’ you know that? And when things aren’t easy…” he sighs, but he doesn’t look away from her. “I know you’re a fighter. I know you’re smart, and I know you know how to figure things out, how to get what you want, what you deserve.”

“But what if I don’t deserve this?” The words come out before Myka can stop them, and she snatches up a throw pillow and hugs it, definitely not hiding behind it. “I got her so wrong, Pete. I messed up, big time. Maybe I… maybe I shouldn’t… be with her. Maybe I should stop this now, before either of us gets hurt even more. I mean what kind of agent would I be, if every time things got hairy I’d stand back, afraid of being in the line of fire because of what it would do to her if I got hurt? How am I-”

Pete has been staring at her all through her words, but this is the point at which he stops her. A frown crosses his face like a summer rainstorm. He sits up and scoots in front of her and puts both hands on her shoulders. “Hey, stop that,” he repeats, more softly than the first time. “Point A – that’s why you have a partner, to catch it when you mess up, and I didn’t do that; I didn’t figure her plans out either. So if there’s gonna be any beating-yourself-up-about-it, it’s gonna be both of us, alright?”

It’s a nice effort, Myka thinks, but she’s not buying it. “You said you didn’t trust her as much as I did,” she points out. 

“Yeah,” he says in the same tone as he usually says ‘duh’. “ _And_ I said I didn’t _dis_ trust her as much as Artie did. Your point being?”

Myka tries to glare at him, but he shrugs it off. 

“ _My_ point is,” he goes on unperturbed, “that none of us saw this coming. Okay, yeah, Artie didn’t trust her, but I think that was on principle, because she came from the Bronze Sector, and less because he really had something on her. And that’s why I wish I’d had a vibe, you know?” he adds. Myka frowns, trying to follow. Her face shows her confusion obviously enough, because he goes on, “If I’d had a bad vibe, we’d have had something on her that was more than ‘Oh, Artie’s being paranoid again’. And if I’d had a good vibe…” he breaks off and shakes his head. “Well, okay. In hindsight, I really don’t see how I could’ve gotten a good vibe at that point. Anyway, though, that’s why I wish I’d gotten something. But I didn’t. I trusted the facts, and I trusted my gut, same as you, and she fooled us all, Myka, not just you.” And then his face softens again, and he clears his throat and utterly changes the topic. “Point B, you deserve to be happy, okay?”

She grits her teeth. She’s tried for _years_ to overcome the ‘you don’t deserve _anything_ ’ her father had instilled in her. She _knows_ Pete’s right. She shakes her head and begins, “Even if I do, though-”

“Ah, ah, ah,” he holds up an admonishing finger but Myka swats at it. 

“Let me finish, okay?” she pleads. “Even if I do, why can’t it just be easy? Why can’t it be someone who doesn’t have a tortured past, someone who’s not one heartbreak away from flying into a world-ending rage, someone-”

Before she can end her sentence, he pulls her forwards into a hug, throw pillow and all. She tries to fight it, but the truth is that she can really use a hug right now, so she relaxes a little into his arms. “Oh come on, Mykes, where would be the fun in that?” he asks, squeezing her to him. 

She rolls her eyes, but she also lets go of the pillow and curls her arms around his shoulders. “Nothing of this has been fun,” she tells his t-shirt.

“Not even flying through the air with a grappler gun? Come on, that must have been awesome.” He gives a mock growl. “Still jealous over that, not gonna lie.” 

“A car was about to run us over!”

Pete pulls back, tilts his head, looks at her, draws out the silence. 

“Oh alright,” she admits, rolling her eyes again. “Okay, yeah, it was kinda cool.” She pretends to think for a bit. “Ganging up on you with her is also pretty neat,” she adds, nudging his shoulder gently. She remembers that moment in Moscow quite fondly.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he sighs. Then he squeezes her shoulders, once, and lets her go, settling next to her again. “I just want you to know that right now, I have a good gut feeling about her and you. It’s not a vibe,” he adds apologetically, “but it’s something, okay? And I don’t think that’s just her needing you to, I don’t know, keep her from destroying the world. She’s good for you, too.”

“Right now I’m not so sure,” Myka sighs. “I’m just… I’m still so _angry_ at her.”

“Then talk with her about it,” he says urgently. “Tell her that. Shout at her if you need to. Oh! Or set up a boxing ring and duke it out!” He throws a few mock jabs at the fire.

Myka rolls her eyes so hard it hurts. “Pete, she’s on the verge of breakdown as it is! I can’t-”

“You also can’t keep it bottled up, Mykes,” he says, much more softly now. “Lord knows I know how wrong that one can go. I can’t tell you how much I wish that at some point, I’d gone to Amanda and said ‘hey, I know you’re going through shit right now with that asshole of a boss, but I need to tell you something, because I can’t handle it by myself and I’m breaking apart’?”

“Amanda?” It’s not the first question that springs to Myka’s mind, but the easiest to give voice to. 

“My ex-wife,” he replies. “Ex _because_ I didn’t speak up. Because I bottled it up and then the bottle got _me_ in the end.” Sitting as close to him as she is, she can feel his shoulders tense up. “I told myself the same thing you did, that I didn’t want to add to what she was going through, and yeah, to a point that’s the right thing to do when someone’s in a shitty situation like that.” He sighs and props his head onto the backrest to stare at the ceiling. “But there’s a line between not wanting to add to someone else’s shitty situation, and drowning in your own shitty situation. And I didn’t do a good job finding that line, so I’m telling you about it so that you can do better, okay?” He turns his head to look at Myka.

The fire blurs as her eyes fill with tears. “Okay,” she whispers. She moves in next to him and pulls her knees to her chest. “Thanks,” she adds.

“That’s what friends are for,” he says easily, and wraps an arm around her shoulder.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (this is a long-ass chapter that spans quite a bit of time. I’m not super happy with it, but I also couldn’t figure out how to sharpen/shorten it.)

“Research?” Helena asks when Myka tells her the next morning, during the precious quiet moments when Christina’s still asleep. They’re sitting on Helena’s bed – despite Christina having a room of her own, she does end up in Helena’s bed more often than not, because if she didn’t, Helena would end up in Christina’s bed and that bed is patently not large enough for two. Myka has snuck in a moment ago, to talk with Helena about Leena’s suggestion. “For the Warehouse?” 

Myka nods. “Leena brought it up,” she says. “There are mountains of old files; I’ve seen them. Reports from when someone started to research something that might have been an artifact, and then something came up and they didn’t finish it. I’d swear some of them might be on parchment, that’s how far back the issue goes.” She’s not too happy with the idea of no longer being out in the field, but every time she thinks about that, she also remembers the moment when she returned from Egypt to find Helena empty-eyed and breaking down. It’s a compromise, Myka tells herself. You make those in a relationship, and right now Helena’s – and Christina’s – need for stability is more important than Myka’s wish to do what she’s best at.

Helena hums in recognition. “Ah yes,” she says, “I remember moments like those.” She sniffs disdainfully. “I did typically go back to my investigations afterwards, though.”

Myka gives her a level look. “I bet every single agent would say that,” she says and then holds up her hands when Helena begins to protest. “And for some it would be truer than others,” she adds quickly. “I mean even I still have one or two open cases,” she admits. “So I’d be looking into those, pursuing leads, talking to sources, things like that. Just information hunting, not artifact hunting. I’d still be…” Myka hesitates. Helena has to understand how important this is to her, though, so she continues, “…helping.”

Helena nods immediately. “Which I very much support,” she says. Then she tilts her head. “Would we still live here, though? In the bed and breakfast? I can’t imagine my continued presence is welcome here. If truth be told, I’ve been waiting for my and Christina’s eviction for a while now.”

Myka bites her lip. “I’ve been thinking about that, too,” she says quietly, then takes a deep breath. “I think… I don’t want to be presumptuous,” she adds quickly, “but I think we could… we should move out. I mean if you…” a blush fires up her ears and cheeks, even the back of her neck, and she hangs her head. 

A hand curls around her cheek. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving without you,” Helena says. Her voice is low, but her delivery is fervent, so much so that Myka’s eyes flutter shut. “I have had the same thought,” Helena goes on, in lighter tones. “The housing market in Univille isn’t exactly ample, but there are a few options that look appealing. However, it seems dreadfully difficult to find a housekeeper.”

Myka blinks. “A… housekeeper.”

Helena tosses her head a little. “Of course. If helping Leena around the house has taught me one thing, it is that I still detest housework. I trust that there are still people in this day and age that I could pay to relieve me of those chores?” Her eyes turn pensive. “Or possibly Leena would agree to-”

“Let me stop you right there,” Myka gets out. “Helena, you…” she shakes her head. “You are really, _really_ Victorian at times,” she says finally. 

“Now what is that supposed to mean?” Helena asks in a peevish tone. 

“People don’t have house servants anymore!” Myka replies sharply, then catches herself and casts a guilty glance towards Christina, who’s thankfully still asleep behind Helena. “I mean, some of the ultra-rich do, probably,” she amends, “and yeah, okay, you’re pretty rich, we’ve established that.” Myka shakes her head. Whenever she remembers that particular bit, it leaves her, who paid off her student loans only two years ago and that only because she barely spends anything on trinkets, utterly speechless. “And okay,” she goes on, “some people sometimes pay someone for a little help around the house; cleaning, gardening, baby-sitting, that kind of thing. But no one, or almost no one, has live-in help anymore, and even if some people do, I don’t want to be one of them, and most certainly not by having Leena, or any other person of color, do stuff for me, okay?”

Helena looks thunderstruck. “Myka, I’m not… this isn’t a question of _race_ ,” she says, with a look of utter confusion on her face. “I simply thought of Leena because she does these things here and I wondered if she would have the time and inclination to do them somewhere else as well.”

Myka closes her eyes and tries to calm her thoughts down. “This may or may not be a question of race,” she says unevenly, “but it’s definitely a question of class, okay? And I’m not… I’m not comfortable with the idea of paying someone to clean my place for me when I know perfectly well how to do it myself.”

“Oh I, too, know perfectly well how to clean a house,” Helena says, eyes blazing. “My mother was a domestic; believe me, I learned. That does not mean I developed a taste for it; quite the contrary.” She takes a deep, calming breath, and the fire in her eyes abates somewhat. “I simply sought to… outsource those tasks, is all. I do have the means now, after all.” 

Myka stares at her open-mouthed for a moment, then snaps her mouth shut. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly, biting her lip. She can feel the blush return, from embarrassment this time. “I… I had this image in my mind, about… you know, about how you grew up, about how people grew up back then, and…” she shakes her head, angry at herself. “I got it wrong. I’m sorry.” She, too, takes a deep breath. “And I… I’m sure you’ll be able to find someone to clean the house. Or we can divide up the chores somehow, see who of us likes and dislikes doing which of them, see if that lines up to where it’s manageable. Like, I clean, you cook, or something.” The moment she says it, she knows why that particular deal won’t work. 

So does Helena. Her head tilts in that patient way of hers that is starting to annoy Myka. “We both know I am no good at cooking,” Helena points out, “and neither are you.”

“We could learn,” Myka says stubbornly, but she has to admit, in the privacy of her mind, that that one is probably a lost cause, which does _not_ help her annoyance. She’s never wanted to learn how to cook, she’s always been perfectly content to either eat delivery food or items that you can simply buy at the supermarket and throw together without dicing them first. Like yogurt and granola, and that’s healthy, even.

Helena continues to throw her a level look, and Myka grits her teeth. 

“Do you know what’s really good?” says an eight-year-old voice, and Myka has to admit she hasn’t been paying attention enough because clearly Christina isn’t asleep anymore and clearly she hasn’t been asleep for long enough to at least catch the discussion about cooking, because what she says next is, “The Food Network on the TV! Leena lets me watch it sometimes and it’s always rather interesting and always about food, of course. It shows you how to cook French onion soup. And I bet it shows you how to cook other things too.” She’s propped up on her elbows, hair tousled and eyes still slightly bleary, but already bursting with enthusiasm. “We can go watch it right now!”

They end up doing that, in the afternoon. They end up on the couch, the three of them, marathoning Good Eats and making lists of what they could try out on their own ( _how hard can it be to follow a recipe?_ ) and the ingredients they’d need for it. They end up not cooking, though, because Leena vetoes the use of her kitchen for the purpose.

They end up with Helena buying a house in Univille, or rather outside of Univille, because Myka has always lived city center with her parents and during college and in DC, so she’s enamored with the idea of not having any neighbors at all for a change. It’s picture perfect small-town America, two-floors-four-bedrooms with a white picket fence and a double garage and a garden and a basement. Helena eyes the basement covetously; Myka appreciates the plumbing that was refurbished two years ago, _beaming_ with anticipation at the thought of instant hot showers. Christina barrels through the garden and asks for a puppy dog because apparently some things transcend space and time. Myka, who has wanted a dog since she was younger than Christina and is severely tempted, points out to the kid that Pete the Ferret is getting lonely; that puts the question of puppy dogs on hold, if only for a while.

They maintain separate bedrooms; it really is the best solution for someone who’s a light sleeper (Myka) and a mother who can’t seem to spend one night without at least looking in on her daughter or sleeping in her daughter’s bed entirely. Besides, while part of Myka would certainly like to kiss Helena again, and a small part of that part can’t _not_ think of kissing Helena or doing other things every time its attention lands on Helena’s lips, or hair, or movements, Helena hasn’t made any motions of that kind, and the rest of Myka is glad about that.

Myka learns that watching Helena around Christina does help rebuild some of the trust Myka has lost. However much she might doubt Helena, she can’t bring herself to believe that Helena would play the long game in front of, much less _with_ her daughter. 

Myka learns that you can start or re-start trusting someone and still be angry at them. 

Myka also learns that she’s really bad at voicing that anger. It’s not like Helena is two people anymore, it’s Myka who’s two people now – one person when she’s around Helena and Christina as they explore this new life, and another person when she’s by herself thinking about all the things she _again_ hasn’t brought up.

Then Myka learns that Helena doesn’t shower.

“What do you mean, you don’t shower?”

“I mean,” Helena says, a martyr of tried patience from the look of her, “that I do not shower, and that I would like for a plumber to fix the bathtub as soon as possible, ideally today.”

“It’s Sunday!” Myka exclaims. 

Helena scoffs the scoff of the long-suffering. “And since that does not stop shops from selling merchandise, excuse me for not realizing it stops craftsmen from plying their trade.”

“Why is it so important? Why can’t you just take a shower like the rest of us?” Myka demands, trying valiantly not to pinch the bridge of her nose. Artie’s been at her all day about a Russian translation he needs done yesterday all of a sudden, and Pete has been-

Pete’s been impossible ever since Myka moved out. She hears bits and pieces of retrievals from Claudia, and while there’s a new guy, Steve, calm and Zen and apparently able to tell if someone’s lying to him, Claudia and Pete _both_ maintain that it’s just not the same without Myka, and that is yet another piece of guilt for her to deal with somehow. 

And now Helena is giving her a very dark look indeed, and Myka half-expects her to say something along the lines of ‘But I _am_ not like the rest of you, darling,’ in those high-horsed tones of her, but-

“If you must know,” Helena says acidly, “it is because the shower reminds me of the bronzer.” And she sweeps away and Myka is angry at herself again.

There are times when living in this house, with its woods around it and its white picket fence, feels just like living over the bookstore with her parents, and Myka hates those times with a vengeance.

There are, too, the days when she, Helena and Christina watch the Food Network or YouTube videos to figure out how to make pancakes or salad dressing or mac and cheese that doesn’t come from a box. There are times when banter around the dining table flows like water down a hillside, times when they laugh so much their sides ache, times on the couch together when brown eyes meet hazel ones in mutual understanding. Those are the times when they feel almost like a family, and still Myka waits for the other shoe to drop. 

There are times when Helena seems on the verge of saying something. She still has nightmares, Myka knows; and sometimes after waking from them, Helena finds Myka in the living room and they read together in silence. But that’s all she ever does – sit and read and be silent. From this, Myka learns that Helena keeps her distance when she’s hurting. Myka learns that those two times that Helena has let Myka hold her through a crying spell are the exceptions, not the rule. Emotions are a weakness, yes, Myka understands that way of thinking, but one, that way of thinking is really difficult for Myka to handle, and two, not knowing what’s going on in Helena’s mind means not knowing if there’s any progress in how Helena deals with her issues. Myka is more exasperated at that than anything, but over time, it does add to the things she’s angry about.

And then Christina climbs a tree. 

She does not ask; she simply calls out to Helena one day from overhead height, telling her she can see into the bird’s nest that is up there. Now Helena understands why the blackbirds have been making such a racket. Her pencil drops from suddenly unresponsive fingers.

Helena, who has been sitting on the porch sketching plans for a material shed behind the garage, can feel her heart stutter to a stop and her hands break out in sweat. She pulls herself together, with difficulty but also with urgency – this is not the time for panic; this is the time to calmly tell her child to leave the nest alone; you can hear how upset the parents are; get out of the tree, please, and come inside and wash your hands.

Her hands tremble for hours after that. Myka sees it when she leaves her office to help Helena and Christina prepare dinner – she offers to dice the vegetables in Helena’s stead, and Helena readily hands over the knife; a much easier admission than ‘talking about her feelings’. 

They are watching an old episode of a show called ‘Good Eats’ that Christina is enamored with; this one depicts several ways to create a tomato sauce – pasta with red sauce quickly having become one of Christina’s favored dishes. Helena is tasked with stirring the diced vegetables in a pan until softened; a task that shaky fingers and a rather less than focused mind will not jeopardize overmuch. Both Christina and Myka inspect the vegetables’ progress critically in order to determine the correct state of softness that indicates adding the canned tomatoes, and then they have to wait for half an hour for the ‘flavors to marry’, whatever that entails. 

Christina is adapting to her new environment with an ease that keeps astonishing Helena. The public school year will start soon, and while she would not have envisioned it when Christina arrived here, Helena is now at a point where she no longer disputes Myka’s claim that Christina could arguably join a state school which, apparently, is called a public school in this country; a matter of no little confusion to both Helena and Christina. 

Helena is, at the same time and not just through the semantics of school designations, continually reminded of the limits of her usefulness – the infamous home schooling test; her frequent inability to answer Christina’s questions; her forced reliance on Myka for even the simplest of errands, such as ensuring that Christina get a full set of equipment necessary for a school girl in the year of our Lord 2012. It is not a situation Helena has found herself in before, and in the privacy of her thoughts she will admit to herself that it is not a situation she deals with well. 

Over dinner, Christina tells Myka how she climbed a tree. Myka stays calm and collected, only shooting the briefest of glances at Helena as she asks, “Did you let your mom know before you did?” 

Not ‘did you ask permission’ – and while Helena has always tried, back in England, back at the tail end of the nineteenth century, not to curb her daughter’s exploration of the world with too many prohibitions, it is not the tail end of the nineteenth century anymore, they are not back in England anymore, and while climbing trees most certainly is not an activity restricted to England or the nineteenth century, _Helena_ is not who she was anymore. She, now, is someone who would much rather her child ask permission to _go down the stairs_ , much less climb a tree. 

She is also strangling the napkin, and forcibly releases her fingers’ hold.

Christina shakes her head and says, “No,” and she does sound a little contrite.

“It’s a good idea to tell your mom before you do something new,” Myka says, and adds, “or me. We can give you tips or tell you what to watch out for.” She throws another short look at Helena, notices the discarded and distressed napkin, looks back at Christina. “Like that climbing down is always a bit trickier than climbing up.”

“I know, right?” Christina has adopted that particular expression from American English remarkably quickly, most probably from Claudia. Sometimes her daughter’s changing speech patterns amuse Helena. Today, the sheer queerness of the expression on her daughter’s tongue stabs daggers into her heart. She stays at the table by sheer force of will – it would be impolite to the highest degree to up and leave, no matter how much she wants out of the situation.

She picks at her food until Christina has finished eating; then the evening routine of watching a previously unwatched episode of Good Eats, of night-time ablutions and bedtime story calm Helena down to the point where she feels almost ambushed when Myka brings up the tree again after Christina is asleep.

“So where were you?” Myka asks, and resentment flares up in Helena. 

“I was outside, on the porch, mulling over some plans for the garden,” she says through gritted teeth. “And if you’re trying to insinuate I should have watched Christina more closely, might I remind you that it was you who pointed out to me that I should not suffocate her with my worries?” Myka has the decency to lower her gaze at that. “However,” Helena continues, “I do not appreciate you encouraging her to do things without asking first.”

“I was not doing that,” Myka says. Helena can hear that Myka has to fight for her voice to be calm, and it riles her up even more. “Don’t put words in my mouth, okay? Christina wants to explore the world, she wants to figure out what she can do; the only way to stop her is to lock her into her room. Do you intend to do that?” Myka’s mouth snaps shut and her jaws work. Then the look in her eyes softens slightly. “Look,” she goes on in mollifying tones, “what I did was just trying to get her to come to us before she does something she hasn’t done before. Not to ask permission, but to let us know. In which case we can _still_ try and dissuade her if we think it’s too dangerous, or we can do something to make it safer for her. That way she won’t feel restricted and we can still keep an eye on her.” 

It sounds so sensible, so logical, and it rankles. It rankles that Helena did not see Myka’s words for what they were; it rankles that she did not think of this approach herself. It rankles that sometimes Myka seems the better parent of the two of them. It rankles so much that Helena cannot get a single word out.

Myka’s gaze softens even more, and that rankles, too. Helena does not want Myka’s pity. “Helena, you’ve got to get a grip on your fears or you’ll transfer them to Christina. You know? She’ll internalize that the world is dangerous, that she can’t do things on her own, that she has to be protected. That’s not how you want her to grow up, right?”

Helena recognizes that if she were more rational, she could acknowledge Myka’s attempt to have this conversation in a sensible manner. If she were more rational, she would not stare at Myka speechlessly. If she were more rational, she would not rise up and leave the room, and yet she does.

She wishes she could be more rational in these discussions, but she knows she has no hope of ever being rational in a discussion that involves danger to her daughter. She wishes she could be more rational; she wishes she could be a better mother; she wishes for a great many things, and all of them are beyond her reach, and that is a situation she does not deal well with at all. 

But time passes, and things settle, as they are wont to do. Helena learns to read laundry labels, learns to program a robotic vacuum, learns to check YouTube for instructions when she runs into something unknown to her. 

She wishes for a hand on her shoulder, sometimes, or for an arm around her waist when the nightmare has been particularly bad. Myka has not put a hand on her shoulder (much less an arm around her waist) ever since that day at the regents’ congregation, and there are moments when Helena finds herself yearning for the simple comfort of that gesture with a strength that takes her breath away. And yet after their conversation in the car that fateful day, and with the subdued anger she can still see in Myka’s eyes every now and then, Helena does not know how to initiate such a contact. She has tried, once, to initiate contact of a different kind – flirtations have always come so easy to her, especially with someone as astonishing as Myka – but Myka stiffly reminded her of _that_ part of their conversation in the car, and Helena, still seeing the sense in Myka’s assertion, retreated. 

So she contents herself – tries to, anyway – with sitting in the same room as Myka, and letting the stillness of reading soothe her instead.

There are other days, when even the short arms of Christina around her midriff are too reminiscent of the constraints of the bronze.

Helena will bear the similarity for Christina’s sake, but those are the days where she doubts she will ever be able to tolerate another person’s embrace again. 

Those are the days when she is glad about the fact that Myka has her separate bedroom. The idea of the two of them sharing a bed is absurd, with Helena’s misgivings and Myka’s anger and their shared determination to not ‘take things there’ as Myka has put it. And still there are many nights when Helena’s steps carry her to Myka’s door after a nightmare or when sleep will not come at all.

She never knocks. 

She never enters. 

It seems an apt metaphor for her current life, she sometimes thinks when she walks away from Myka’s door yet again. She could not possibly say what – if she did knock, if she did enter, if Myka even let her in – she would do, what she would _want_. A hand on her shoulder? An arm around her waist? A warm body with which to share the darkness? 

A conversation about emotions?

Once upon a time, the answer to what she would have wanted in a woman’s bedroom, a woman who she loved so desperately, what was more – once upon a time, that answer would have been easy. 

Once upon a time, if anyone had told her she would live her days with her daughter on one side and a woman of Myka’s intelligence and beauty on the other, with ample means and little to do but spend her time any way she pleased, she would have grabbed that offer, that dream, with both hands and never would have let go. Yet here she is, with her daughter and with Myka, with ample means and little to do, and her days spiral ever more out of her control.

There is a stack of papers on the coffee table one night, advertisements and course lists of a community college in Featherhead, doubtlessly left behind by Myka before she retired to bed. Reading them, researching the content therein, and enrolling in a class on metal milling and soldering make Helena feel more put together than she has in weeks. 

Her instructor, a stocky Latino in his fifties, is the first person to mention the concept of ‘culture shock’ to Helena, when Helena indicates during the ‘introduction round’ that she is from London, England (and the fact that she has to add the country to the city’s name is ammunition, handed to her on a plate, for the foreseeable future of England-versus-America discussions. Who do these people think their upstart of a country is? London, England indeed.)

Helena researches culture shock throughout the day – the instructor gives her grief for not following the class, but how can she not, seeing as this explains so much of what is bothering her and Christina? 

That night, she and Myka have an almost completely rational and surprisingly effective conversation about how to re-introduce a few English habits and traditions into their lives. It is only when she goes to bed that Helena realizes this is the first night of too many to count that their nightly conversation has not descended into heated debate or exasperated silence.

Helena quite enjoys the class, but her first learning assessment, three weeks in, is the homeschooling test all over again. Helena does well enough on some of the equations, but most of the questions are beyond her – not because she has not paid enough attention, but because they assume previous knowledge that Helena does not have. The only thing that placates her ire a little is that a quick look around the room shows her that she is not the only one to struggle. Nevertheless, when she comes home and Myka asks about the test, Helena is loath to talk about the subject, and quick to change the topic.

August arrives, and with it, Christina’s first day in school. Her excitement has been palpable, increasing to unbridled enthusiasm the weekend before The Big Day, but she comes back crestfallen. Helena’s heart aches from the moment she first sees her daughter’s face when Christina steps off the bus. Christina’s explanation, though, when they sit around the dinner table, pierces Helena’s insides with ice.

“They called me weird,” Myka hears Christina tell her mother. Helena draws herself up and Myka knows the next thing will be the Fury of Helena Wells if she doesn’t nip this right now. 

“Kids can react like that to someone who’s a bit different from them,” she says soothingly. “For me it was my glasses.” She taps them; she’s taken to wearing them rather than contacts for her research; they’re easier on her eyes when she reads this much. “What is it for you?”

“The way I talk,” Christina mumbles with a deep scowl. “Even though I say ‘awesome’ all the time, the way Claudia taught me!”

Myka smiles a barely more than perfunctory smile at that. At least ‘the way I talk’ isn’t ‘the way I’m still quite Victorian at times’ – something Myka’s been worried about. Helena knows much better when to conceal that she doesn’t understand a contemporary reference, when to bite back a comment about ‘in my days’ and the likes. Christina rarely has that filter, and frankly neither Helena nor Myka want her to develop filters at eight years of age just in order to fit in. 

Also, ‘the way I talk’ isn’t ‘I have two moms’, which is also something Myka’s been worried about, this being South Dakota. Regardless of whether it’s actually true – certainly this is an unconventional relationship at best, and Christina has never referred to Myka as ‘mom’ or anything like that – kids will construe things. _People_ will construe things. 

Both these things might still happen yet; this was just the first day of school. When Myka tells Helena this later that night, when Christina’s asleep and they’re both on the couch, she can see how it fires up Helena’s anger again. 

“I still maintain it would be better for Christina to be homeschooled,” Helena snaps. 

Myka sighs and rubs her hands down her face. “We’ve been over this before, Helena. Your knowledge isn’t up to date enough, and I don’t see myself homeschooling anyone, period.” It’s been a sore topic for weeks, and Myka wishes they could just let it go, but she knew it’d be resurrected the moment she saw Christina’s despondent face this evening.

“Not up to date enough!” 

“Homeschooled or not, Helena, she’s going to have to pass tests; you’ve _seen_ the tests, you’ve _failed_ them. So how do you propose to teach Christina enough to pass?” They’ve been over this before and Myka is too tired to hide her annoyance.

Helena reels as though she’s been dealt a blow and storms off towards the stairs, presumably to head to the ‘den of iniquity’ she’s built in the basement. This, too, they’ve been over before, and Myka runs after her, catching her arm in the small hallway at the top of the stairs. 

“I’ve asked you before not to run away from discussions when you run out of arguments,” she hisses, but quietly because they’re right at the foot of the stairs that lead upstairs as well as down. She tries to take a breath and calm down. “Helena, please, let’s… let’s talk about this without yelling, okay? I’m sorry I snapped at you. And I’m sorry that Christina is having a hard time at school, and I’m sorry that this is putting stress on you.”

Helena turns away, pulling her arm out of Myka’s grasp, but it’s a slow turn and the way that her arm slips out of Myka’s hand is nothing more than a result of that turn, so Myka lets her fingers drop to her side. 

Even though a bit of light falls into it from the living room, it’s dark enough in this hallway that Myka can barely see the outline of Helena’s head. She has to deduce how she’s holding it (angry, upset, annoyed) from the angle of her voice. “I am so tired, Myka,” Helena says, and her voice sounds defeated and her head is bowed and that is new, that is not good. “I am tired of never being _enough_.” Her voice flares up at the last word, and there is a hint of pale skin, of face, of hands combing through hair, but then the head bows down again and the hair hides Helena’s expression.

“And I get that,” Myka says, and her anger is flaring up again, too. They’ve talked about this, or half-talked about this because Helena rarely says more than one sentence on the matter before shutting down the conversation. Intelligent as Helena is, able to understand the most complex of machines, the most ingenious of inventions; erudite as she is with regard to everything any science knew until the turn of the 20th century – her knowledge is _outdated_ , and when Christina asks her how this thing works or why that thing is the way it is, chances are Helena has to look it up. And when Christina has difficulties dealing with the fact that she’s jumped a hundred years into the future, that her friends and family aren’t around anymore, that everything except possibly the color of the sky has changed, chances are Helena has difficulties helping her daughter handle those emotions. And chances are that being unable to deal with Christina’s emotions reminds Helena of all of her own emotions she is just as ill-equipped to handle, and more often than not things just spiral from there. Granted, Myka has no idea how to best help either of the two, beyond showing them her love and affection and the positive aspects of the situation. But sometimes that doesn’t come easy, and some days even that seems… well, _not enough_. 

“I get that,” Myka repeats. "But you know what?” she goes on, unable to stop her words after holding them back for months. “I’m tired too. I’m tired of… of doing all the heavy lifting here.” She half turns away from Helena and lets her body thump into the wall. Just as it was in Helena’s, Myka’s exhaustion is audible in her voice, too. “Every time we fight, you just… you just run away, and every time it’s me who comes after you and tries to make things right, tries to find a solution. And now you’re standing there saying that you’re not enough, as if you want me to tell you that of _course_ you’re enough, or to show you _how_ to be enough, or something like that, and I can’t. I just can’t. I’m not enough either, apparently.” She rubs her forehead and sighs. “I’ve been trying so hard. I’ve been working so hard on building something with you and Christina, but I’m tired of you running away. I’m tired of having to run after you. And I know, Helena, _believe_ me I _know_ that you’re not in a good place, that you have problems of your own. But I don’t see you tackling them and that’s the biggest problem I have with all of this. If you’re tired of never being enough, what are you doing to be more?”

She waits for a reply. If Helena were to say something, _anything_ , Myka thinks, this could be salvageable, but not a word, not a sound comes from Helena’s lips. 

Myka sighs again. “I’m heading out,” she says. “You don’t need to wait up for me.”

The crunch of Myka’s car’s tires on the driveway as she leaves sounds to Helena as though someone is throwing pebbles onto her coffin. She finds it hard to breathe – the defeat in Myka’s voice before she left, the idea of Myka being too worn-out to continue, the challenge Myka issued wearily just before she left; all of it is sitting on Helena’s chest like a stone. 

‘If you’re tired of never being enough, what are you doing to be more?’

If Helena is true to herself, the answer is, ‘I do not know.’ The answer is, ‘I cannot do more than I do currently.’ The answer is, ‘I can barely keep my head above water as it is.’ Which all comes back to ‘I am not enough’, like Ouroboros biting its own tail.

And if Myka is too worn-out to continue, what exactly does that portend for the future? How would ‘not continuing’ look? Would Myka leave, and if so, leave to where? Would Myka stay but stop conversing with Helena? 

The thought that she could lose Myka over her Ouroboros problem paralyzes Helena to the point of a panic attack; it feels too similar to how her thoughts turned useless circles in the Bronze.

Helena cannot tell how much time has passed when gravel crunches again outside, but Myka’s key does not click in the lock. There is a knock instead, and that is unusual enough to snap Helena out of her spiral. When she goes to open the door, she looks into the anxious faces of Pete and Leena.


	10. Chapter 10

Myka shuts the front door behind herself quietly, careful not to make a noise. This is a school night, after all. She heads to the car without much conscious thought, heads out onto the road without much conscious thought, takes turns without much conscious thought, and finally stops somewhere in the middle of nowhere, South Dakota – she’s reasonably sure she hasn’t crossed any state line. 

For a moment, she debates calling Pete, but he’s out on retrieval with Steve. Plus whenever Pete isn’t distant he downright snipes at her, and that’s not what Myka wants or needs right now, so she calls Tracy instead. 

The last time she’s called Tracy was to give her sister her new address. Tracy had, of course, asked why she was moving, and while Myka had stalled for a while, she had ultimately been unable to keep hidden the fact that she was moving _in_ with someone. 

With a female someone.

With a child of eight years. 

The first hadn’t been that much of a surprise, of course; Myka has had girlfriends interspersed with boyfriends even in high school. 

The second one, though, had shut Tracy up for a full five seconds. 

When Tracy answers Myka’s call with “Is the kid in bed, then?”, therefore, it’s a good sign that Tracy has fully digested the news. 

“Yeah,” Myka says, biting back a sudden onslaught of tears at Tracy’s cheerful acceptance. “Hi Trace.”

“Oh Christ on a cracker,” Tracy says, picking up on Myka’s tone of voice immediately. “What happened?”

In fits and starts, Myka tells her everything. 

Everything. 

Tracy is her One, now, and Tracy is a _champ_. She doesn’t bat an eye – at least Myka doesn’t think so; it’s not like this is a video call. Tracy Bering, all-American Girl, takes the fact that her sister is involved with the Father of Science Fiction, who’s really the Mother of Science Fiction, who really _is_ a mother, who wanted to end the world in grief over her daughter that she believed murdered – Tracy takes all of this in stride. Myka even sheds a few tears and Tracy isn’t frazzled, and _that_ most certainly is... weird. 

“Okay,” Tracy says at some point when Myka’s voice peters off. “Here’s a few things I’m thinking. First of all, wow. Second of all, _wow_. Third, are you okay? D’you need to come up here for a while? D’you need _me_ to come down to you guys and kick this lady’s butt a few times?”

“I’m fine, Trace.” Myka rubs her face with her free hand.

“Oh yeah, you totally sound fine, Ophelia.”

Myka hates being called ‘Ophelia’ by _anyone_ almost as much as she hates being called ‘kiddo’ by her dad. “Stuff it, Tracy, for real.”

“Sorry.” Tracy does sound acceptably remorseful. Then she goes right on, though, with, “Stuff _your_ ‘I’m fine’, though. You are _not_ fine. I mean when you told me you’d moved in with a chick and her daughter, I thought okay, alright, that’s gonna be tough, but this? I mean I’d tell you you shouldn’t make the same mistakes I made,” she adds dryly, “but I guess _that_ ship has sailed.”

And Myka remembers that before Kevin, Tracy had been involved with a guy who, she discovered after a couple of excruciating years, had been suffering from internalized biphobia. “God, Trace,” she says quickly, “I’m sorry. Russell?”

“Damn right Russell,” Tracy says grimly. Then she sighs. “Just… just tell me, seriously, Myka, _tell me_ if you’re okay or if you’re not okay. Tell me if you need, I don’t know, a vacation from your life for a while or something. Tell me if I can do anything for you.”

Again, Myka fights tears. When has her little sister become this considerate? “I need you to tell me how I can make this alright,” she says, and sounds not a little pathetic to her own ears.

“What do you want to make alright?” Tracy asks. “The fact that she’s not figuring out her shit, or the fact that you feel like you’re insufficient?”

“Both?”

“Yeah, no, that’s not gonna work, I can tell you that for free,” Tracy says. “I mean you can work on the ‘I feel insufficient’ bit, but unless she realizes she needs to start pulling her weight, there’s nothing you can do for her part of things. You understand?” There’s steel in Tracy’s voice now. “ _She_ has to get her own ass in gear. There’s nothing you can do, Myka, nothing beyond what you’ve done: tell her you think it’s a good idea, tell her why, point her towards people and information. Anything beyond that _has_ to come from her. It’s the whole ‘lead a horse to water’ thing; you realize that, right?”

Myka can’t answer; her throat is too constricted. 

Tracy starts worrying immediately. “Myka? Are you still there?”

“Yeah.” It comes out as a squeal, and Myka swallows harshly and coughs and tries again. “Yeah, I’m… I’m still here. I’m just…” She shakes her head, casting around for words. 

“Believe me, it took me years to get that. _Years_ ,” Tracy repeats with a sigh. “Years in which I kept nagging Russell, to the point where he resented me and I resented him and nothing moved forwards whatsoever.”

Myka remembers that part even though she was already in DC at the time. She remembers the phone calls, years ago and roles reversed. “Yeah,” she croaks again. “I remember.”

“So don’t worry if it takes a while to sink in, but you better get your head around it, because that is a mistake of mine I really don’t want you to repeat, okay?” The steel is back in Tracy’s voice. 

Myka nods. “Yeah,” is, again, all she can say. And, “I’ll try.”

“I’m not saying that she’s a bad person,” Tracy goes on, and once more, tears simply spring into Myka’s eyes. She dashes them away quickly; she doesn’t want to feel sorry for Helena, not right now. “I’m not diminishing her struggle, okay? I mean, Russell struggled too, I knew he did. I knew he had a hell of a time admitting that he felt attracted to Kurt Smoller the same way he felt attracted to me, with his parents the homophobic assholes that they were. I know all that; I acknowledge all that.”

“Biphobic,” Myka says quietly. 

“God,” Tracy groans, long-drawn-out and suffering. “Seriously?”

“Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Tracy sighs. “I mean you’re not wrong. You just pick the worst moments to be a smartass, that’s all. Nothing new there,” she adds with a snort that translates into a loud air-crackle in Myka's phone speaker. “Anyway, what I’m saying is, even if she’s in a bad place, you’re allowed to be in a bad place too, okay? And you gotta acknowledge that. Don’t swallow it all down just because you’re feeling sorry for her. When she hurts you with what she does or doesn’t do, you gotta acknowledge that. When she-” Tracy stops short. “Is the kid alright? Is she… like, taking it out on the kid?” she asks, then, tentatively and shakily and Myka has to stop that worry immediately. 

“No,” she declares emphatically. “No, she doesn’t; she would _never_. Christina is fine. Surprisingly level-headed, all things considered,” she adds.

She hears Tracy exhale explosively. “Thank God.” 

“Yeah.”

“But _you’re_ not alright, sis,” Tracy goes on. “Okay, so we’ve established that you’re not responsible for her getting her ass in gear, and that you need to acknowledge when she hurts you. Now.” Myka hears her inhale sharply. “That bit about not feeling as though you’re enough.”

“Trace…” Myka almost whines her sister’s name. She doesn’t want to go there, but she knows she can’t make Tracy stop, short of hanging up on her, and that would _not_ go over well.

“Ophie…” Tracy can whine with the best of them. “Seriously, though, what’s _this_ about, Miss Presidential Detail Super Secret South Dakota Agent? What’s the ‘not enough’ we’re talking about here?”

Myka swallows. It’s difficult to put words around this. “I… I’m not sure,” she says finally.

“Try,” Tracy insists. “Give me examples. Metaphors. Tell me how it makes you feel; whatever.”

“It’s like…” Myka begins, then stops again. Examples. Metaphors. “I can see her struggle,” she says after a moment’s thought, “and I want to help her but I just don’t know how. I mean sometimes it’s like we don’t even speak the same language, and not because of the British English-American English stuff. She grew up in the eighteen-seventies, Trace! All of that ‘stiff upper lip’ shit, the stuff that we laugh about now; she _grew up_ with that. I mean, can you imagine?” She shakes her head. “It happens so often that we get into a fight or I ask her to explain why she reacted in a specific way, and she doesn’t even understand what I’m _talking_ about. Like she can’t even grasp what I mean, like it’s all completely _alien_ to her.”

“And that makes you feel not enough?”

“No!” Myka groans. “I mean… I mean maybe? Not good enough at… at communicating, I guess? Not patient enough, especially when I’m all riled up anyway, to sit her down and, and, and explain emotional reactions to her; explain that she’s, I don’t know, in denial about something or that she’s suppressing something or deflecting the question or whatever. I mean I’m not a psychiatrist; it’s not my…” job? Place? Responsibility? How to end this sentence?

Tracy understands anyway. “That’s exactly what I’ve been saying,” she says, “so good for you to pick up on that. But that still doesn’t sound like we’re getting at the heart of your ‘not enough’ bit.”

“I… I _think_ I have an idea what she needs,” Myka says, trying out the sentence as she speaks it. “Like, sometimes I can see the shape of it? Like when you… when you see a movie, you know, with someone’s empty house and everything is draped in these dust cloths and you can see that under this one there’s a table and under that one a couch?”

“Okay…?” Tracy replies, long-drawn out and asking for more. 

“And try as I might, I’m not large enough to fill that shape. I’m not the right _shape_ to fill that shape. I know I can be some of it, but I don’t know how to be all of it,” Myka says and heaves a frustrated sigh. “I just want to love her, Trace. I’m not her therapist, and I don’t want to be. I’m trying to understand her, to be considerate and patient and everything, but sometimes I just… I just _can’t_ , and I feel so guilty about that, and I don’t _want_ to feel guilty about simply being who I am.”

“Aha,” Tracy says darkly. “I think we’re getting somewhere.”

Myka closes her eyes in supplication. “This is about Dad and me all over again,” she whispers and hears Tracy hum her agreement. “I mean,” she laughs bitterly, “‘Never enough for Warren Bering: story of my life’.”

“Myka.” Tracy’s voice has lost its steel; it’s all gentleness now. “I know,” she adds. 

Myka has to consciously pull her teeth apart to speak. “I pushed myself till I _cracked_ for that man,” she presses out, “and he never once was satisfied, never once was happy about me, or with me, or for me.”

“I know,” Tracy sighs. “I know, and Lord, I wish he would be, just once.”

“Yeah.” Myka could kick something, but the only thing near her feet are the car’s gas and brakes, and that won’t go over well, so she huffs out a massive, frustrated, groaning sigh. “Fucking ‘Bering and Sons’,” she growls. 

“I know,” Tracy says again. “Fuck _that_ sign sideways with a chainsaw.”

Myka hiccups a laugh that disappears as suddenly as it’s come over her. She props her elbow on the window ledge and sinks her head into her hand. “Trace, he’s always made me feel like I don’t have what it takes, and here I am and I _really_ do _not_ have what it takes to help Helena heal, and I… I don’t know how to handle that,” Myka admits, to her sister and to herself. 

“Well, you said it yourself, sis; you’re not her therapist and you don’t want to be, and that’s A-okay because you shouldn’t be.”

“But then how do I fix this?” 

“Study psychology?”

“Goddamnit, Trace!”

Tracy sighs. “Set boundaries, Bering, that’s what I have for you on this one. Figure out what you can be for her and _be_ that, as much as you can, but also figure out what you _can’t_ be and when you gotta stop being things for her because it takes too much out of you. And talk to her. Tell her all these things and figure out with her how you’ll let her know that she’s crossing a line when she does. And then stick to those lines as if your life depended on it.” Tracy delivers all of that in a flat voice. 

It makes Myka frown. “How do you know all that?” she asks. 

“Russell,” is Tracy’s answer. “Last year. He came by and apologized. Like, actually, seriously apologized. Asked me if he could tell me what he, we, should have done, and I said, sure, why not, if you think that’ll help _now_.”

“And he told you all of that?”

“Yup,” Tracy says. “Apparently he figured all of that out in therapy, and it’s how he’s living together with his current partner.”

“That’s… that’s nice,” Myka replies, trying to feel happy for Russell who she met once and kinda liked, before all the phone calls. 

“That’s not the point, though,” Tracy says. “The point is that _you_ , sister of mine, gotta define your boundaries, let her know, and stick to them. You got that?”

“Yeah,” Myka sighs but with a smile. “I do get that. It makes sense. I mean I think I need to sit on it for a while, but at least now I know a bit better what I’m looking at. Thanks for that.”

“No problemo. Say, where are you even?”

“In my car, somewhere on a gravel road,” Myka says, looking around her and seeing only dark landscape. 

“Will you get home alright? Still got enough gas?”

“Yes, _Mom_ ,” Myka rolls her eyes. “Seriously, though, Trace, thank you.”

“Seriously, _Ophie_ , no biggie. Just make sure you show up to Thanksgiving this year.”

Myka groans. “I knew you had an ulterior motive.”

“If you bring the chick and her kid, maybe Mom will stop getting at me and Kevin for not having reproduced yet. I swear that woman would have me gestate in world record time just so that she could get her hands on some grandkids.”

“Helena,” Myka insists softly. “And Christina.”

“I _know_ , Ophie. I am what’s technically called _teasing_ you.” Tracy cackles a little. “Just trying to restore the balance here. I mean, _you’re_ the big sister, you’re supposed to know everything and give _me_ advice.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how that happened either,” Myka replies. 

“Curveballs,” Trace says sagely. “Sometimes life throws them.”

“I suppose.” Myka shifts in her seat. She cut the engine when she stopped to call Tracy, and it’s getting chilly in the car, now that she’s in a place to notice something like that. “Trace, I…”

Tracy’s smile is audible. “Get home safe, okay? Shoot me a text.”

“Will do,” Myka says automatically, but she means it. “Thanks, Tracy.”

“Thanks _giving_ , Myka.”

“I hate you.”

“Hate you more!” Tracy’s assertion sings through the line before it goes dead. 

Myka looks at her phone for a moment, then shakes her head. Taking advice from her little sister. It sounds like good advice, though. Not easy, but doable. 

She has an objective now, and Myka with an objective is pretty damn near unstoppable.

When she turns back into their driveway, Pete’s car is in front of the garage. 


	11. Chapter 11

“It’s my mom,” Pete says, knees bouncing as he sits next to Myka on the couch. “I had a bad vibe, I tried to call her, she didn’t answer. And now my vibes are getting worse and worse.” 

“What do you need?” Myka asks immediately. Whatever she might have wanted to talk about with Helena, this is more important – Pete is beside himself with fear, and Myka trusts his vibes implicitly. Even Leena, typically so calm and collected, is looking worried.

Pete shoots Myka a grateful look. “I wanna get to her place in Buffalo ASAP and see what’s what. Jeannie hasn’t replied to my messages either, but Mykes, I can’t wait, I really-” He snaps his mouth shut. “This is bad,” he presses out through his teeth. “I’m gonna need you.”

“Of course.” Again, Myka doesn’t hesitate. It’s past eleven and she’s had an exhausting day, but Pete needs her help and there’s very, very little she wouldn’t do for him, especially when he’s this frayed. She looks over at Helena. “Will you and Christina be alright without me for however long this takes?” Only a few days ago, Christina has gone through yet another bout of sickness; it seems like she’s forever battling either head colds or stomach bugs. Doctor Calder has explained that this is nothing to worry about; Christina’s immune system has to adapt to a different continent and a different time. Still, Myka knows Helena worries – they both do. 

“No, Mykes, she… she’s gotta come, too.”

Myka sees Helena blink at Pete’s words, and can’t fault her for that. There are some unresolved issues between her former partner and Helena, she knows – like Lizzie Borden’s Compact that almost made its way to Kelly Hernandez. Like Kelly deciding, even without a run-in with an actual artifact, that life with Pete wouldn’t be safe, wouldn’t be solid, wouldn’t be what she wants; like Kelly deciding to end things with Pete. Like Pete blaming Helena for her part in this because that’s easiest (and, up to a point, not wrong).

And yet here he sits, asking for Helena’s help.

“But… Christina,” Helena says, swallowing harshly. With Christina being as upset as she was this afternoon, Myka can understand why Helena hesitates.

“I can stay here,” Leena offers immediately. “Or if it helps set your mind at ease, I can take Christina back to the B&B with me. Better security, and her room is still active,” she adds. “She’ll be alright. Even if she starts puking again.” Leena gives a small laugh. “And now I know why I had the urge to come here with Pete tonight.” She shakes her head and grins wryly. “I know I said I wouldn’t be starting a babysitting service for agents, but it’ll be okay for this time.”

“Would you be okay with that? Please say you’re okay with that,” Pete urges Helena. 

Myka can see Helena’s misgivings plain as day, and is about to say something along those lines when Helena’s spine straightens and she nods, surprising Myka enough to have her mouth drop open. 

“I will come with you,” Helena says, for good measure. “Leena, will you take Christina to the Bed and Breakfast?” When Leena nods, Helena gets up from her chair. “I’ll wake her and explain things to her,” she says quietly. “Myka, while I do, will you pack overnight bags for her and for me?”

“Of course,” Myka hears herself say on autopilot. Then, to Pete, she says, “Give me five minutes, okay?”

He nods grimly and shoots out of his seat. “I’ll be outside,” he says, and Myka knows he’s going to be pacing. 

It takes barely more than twelve minutes to load an almost-asleep Christina and a bag of her things into Myka’s car, hand Leena the keys, and get on the road to Buffalo, Wyoming. Myka drives because out of all of them, she has the clearest head right now. Pete keeps hitting ‘redial’ on his phone, and Helena is fretting about all the things she has forgotten to tell Leena or to put into the car with Christina.

It takes them a little under three hours (because while Myka doesn’t like to go faster than speed limit, she is very much able to; at this point, with Pete being the bundle of nerves that he is, she’d flash her badge to any county sheriff who’d try to stop her) to reach Jane Lattimer’s house; three hours of unsuccessful phone calls and increasing tension in the car. 

It’s half past two in the morning and the neighborhood is quiet – it should be; it’s a suburb. The moon is up, full and bright in a clear sky; good for seeing, but bad for being seen, too. There’s a car parked in front of the house that Pete indicates. Myka looks quizzically at Pete as she pulls in at the curb a bit further down the street, and he shakes his head. 

“Not my mom’s,” he says, just as much in agent mode at the sight of the car as Myka is. “She drives a Subaru. And I don’t think she has a house guest tonight,” he adds, jaw tight.

Myka nods, mind calm, thoughts clear, hands snapping open the button on her gun holster. She casts a glance at Helena and comes to a decision. “Here,” she says and holds out her Tesla to Helena. “I’m not wasting resources,” she tells Helena and Pete, who both look at her with raised eyebrows. Helena takes the weapon and checks its charge with a practiced glance. “You said she should come,” Myka tells Pete with a shrug, “you didn’t mean for her to be purely decorative, right?” She reaches across him for the glove compartment and the box of purple gloves in it, and sees his slightly stunned nod from the corners of her eyes. “What’s the house’s layout?” she asks as she puts on two gloves and passes the box on to Helena.

He shakes himself out of his surprise and starts explaining: front door, another entry through the garage, back yard door, and a fence separating front and back yard with a gate on the east side of the property. All doors typically locked. Back yard door leads into the dining room; other ground floor rooms in clockwise order are kitchen with garage door, living room, hallway with front door, guest bedroom, half bathroom. Two more bedrooms and full bathroom upstairs. All windows are dark, but it _is_ two-thirty-four a.m.

“So she should be here, but no one else,” Myka recaps. “Correct?”

“Correct.”

“Didn’t you say you had a sister? Could she be visiting?”

“Believe me, I’d have heard of it,” Pete says with an attempt at lightness. “Mom never misses an opportunity to rub it in that even though Jeannie lives in Omaha,” he rolls his eyes at the name, “she visits more often than I do. So, yeah, no, I don’t think so.”

Myka nods and purses her lips. “Okay. You check the front, Helena goes around the east side of the house and I check the garage and west side. Helena, I’ll meet you at the back yard door; in… two minutes?” She looks at Pete for confirmation. He nods, once, tersely, and the two of them synch their watches. Helena, who doesn’t wear one, will just have to make the best of it, Myka thinks, and then the older woman speaks up. 

“I’ll count,” she says simply. “One hundred and twenty seconds. Give the signal, Agent Lattimer.”

He nods again, checks his watch’s second hand, and then says, “Aaaand… go.”

The handle of Myka’s Tesla is warm in Helena’s hands as she moves quickly towards Mrs. Lattimer’s house. Darting silently through the dark is immensely easier in trousers, she thinks to herself with a grim smile. Helena sees Myka go past the car and up the driveway to busy herself at the garage door; Pete has hunkered down next to the front door to check the lock and the living room window. When Helena rounds her corner of the house, she sees a ground floor window – closed, curtains pulled, no signs of tampering – and the garden gate – locked. The garden fence, however, is easy enough to climb, especially sans petticoats. Helena surmises, as she scales it, that an attacker might have done the same. She drops lightly into the back yard and looks around – there is barely any artificial light, but fortunately the moon is full and the sky cloudless. It is sufficiently bright to see that someone has walked this path before her tonight; or rather the grass next to the gravel, which Helena sticks to as well, to avoid making any noises.

She crouches down at the building’s rear corner and chances a glance around it – house wall and garden, then a raised porch, then the house’s far corner from whence Myka will come. Nobody to see, but, as she comes closer, Helena sees a crisply outlined patch of wetness glisten on the porch stairs – a footprint. Someone came the same way as she did and then took these stairs. Difficult to pinpoint the time of their arrival; it’s early September and already chilly enough at night for dew to form and to linger.

When Myka arrives, Helena points out the moisture to her, then points over her shoulder back towards the gate to indicate that she has seen more traces there. Myka nods and glances at her watch, then holds it up for Helena to see. Fifteen seconds left. Myka points to the back door, then to herself, then mimes turning a door knob. Then she mimes tugging fruitlessly at a door handle, and taps her leg. Then she points to the Tesla Helena holds. Helena nods. Myka will try the door first, but if it is locked, she will kick it open and go through first; Helena will cover her. 

Myka raises her hand, all fingers extended, and lowers them as the last five seconds tick by. On three, she drops her hand and they move up the stairs; on two, Myka grasps the door knob. On one, she shakes her head and takes a step back.

Myka kicks the lock right out of the frame and is through the door in a heartbeat. She switches on her flashlight and scans the room – table, four chairs, low-hanging lamp, settee on the left wall, doorway to the living room in the far wall, opening to the kitchen in the right wall. She checks all blocked lines of sight before hissing “Clear.” She sees Pete’s light move in the living room, hears his low-voiced “Clear” a moment later, then there’s a loud thump and splintering of glass to their left. 

“Kitchen!” Pete shouts as he barrels towards the front door. “I’ll get him, you take care of Mom!”

Myka runs into the kitchen, Helena hard on her heels, and flips the lights on. Helena stays in the doorway, covering the rest of the house as Myka rounds the chair that Pete’s mom’s been tied to – and comes eye to eye with Jane the Regent. She hears a commotion in the driveway, but her thoughts are on Pete’s Mom the Regent, who’s heaving short, gasping breaths, who’s surrounded by a red flickering light that has no discernible source, who’s staring unseeingly ahead with terror in her eyes, who’s not indicating that she sees or hears Myka at all. 

There is no mark on her and yet Myka is certain that Pete’s Mom the Regent was tortured in some way, and that and the flickering red light means artifact. 

Car tires screech off and she hears Pete’s loud swear. She reaches out gingerly, and, when the red light doesn’t hop onto her purple-gloved fingers but stays with Pete’s Mom the Regent, Myka starts untying the woman’s wrists. 

“Mom!” Pete rushes in, out of breath and with something held in his left. “Myka, the guy got away but he dropped this!”

He moves to stand next to Myka, and suddenly his mother’s eyes snap up to his face, and she starts, gasps, shudders, and sags into unconsciousness.

“Mom!” Pete tosses the object onto the kitchen table and catches his mother as she slides from the chair. His face is wild with fear as he lowers her to the ground and then looks at Myka. “Do something!”

“Call 911, Pete, _now_ ,” she tells him immediately, while her brain presents her with the textbook approach for artifact-related resuscitation. “Helena, neutralize the artifact – I have a bag in my back pocket, just grab it, okay?” Check pulse: nothing. Cardiac arrest, which means CPR. Myka straightens the woman’s limbs, grateful that the woman is only in her pajamas – no necklaces or scarves to interfere. 

To the tune of Stayin’ Alive, Myka begins to compress Pete’s mom’s chest. She barely feels Helena kneeling down behind her, grateful that the kitchen is spacious enough to accommodate the movement – eleven, twelve, thirteen – barely notices the sparks as Helena neutralizes whatever it was that Pete took from the intruder. 

She stops for a moment, feels for a pulse, but there’s nothing, and the red glow is still flickering around Pete’s mom’s body. Myka groans and restarts her compressions. “Helena,” she presses out between fifteen and sixteen, “what was the artifact,” nineteen, twenty, “do you know?”

“Mongol Army Stirrup,” Helena says curtly, “I’m trying to remember what I read about it.”

Pete rushes back in. “They’re on their way,” he calls out, then drops to the floor next to Myka. “I’m ready to take over,” he says, “if you need me to.”

“‘Kay, “Myka nods. “Twenty-eight,” she mutters, “twenty-nine,” she looks up at him, “thirty – go.”

The switch goes smoothly enough, all things considered. Pete counts out loud – whatever helps him focus is good, Myka thinks and turns to Helena. “Mongol Army Stirrup?” she asks. Already her thoughts are racing through her recollection of all things Mongolian, Asian, Russian in the Warehouse.

“Instills in the victim the fear of the approaching Mongol hordes,” Helena says with a frown. “Very old artefact; and it’s been a long time since I read about it.” She grits her teeth, staring down at the back of Pete’s head. Then she snaps her fingers. “Prayer,” she says.

“What?!” snaps Pete, then continues, “seventeen, eighteen-”

“The Lord’s Prayer, in your case, I’d say” Helena says, “an invocation of God to help against the Hordes.”

“Because nothing else ever helped,” Myka realizes. “Pete, do you know the Our Father?”

“Not enough,” Pete almost sobs, “Myka!?”

She prompts him line by line, and if heartfelt desperation has ever helped a prayer, it’s tonight – as they both intone the ‘amen’, the red glow flickers once more and vanishes. 

It doesn’t make Pete’s mom’s heart re-start, but it’s got to mean the artifact’s influence is gone, and that’s got to be a good thing. Myka takes over from Pete again, and then the ambulance is in the driveway and Pete’s mom is in the ambulance and they are all in a hospital’s waiting room. 

It takes Pete a while to stop worrying and start thinking, so Myka has a head start when he asks, “What the hell did that dude want with my mom, though?”

“Pete,” she says, trying to sound calmer than she feels, “Pete, your mom’s a regent.” Then she takes a deep breath and adds, “and there have been two confirmed regent deaths in the past three months.”


	12. Chapter 12

“What?!” Pete looks at Myka as though she has suddenly sprouted horns, and Helena steps in. 

“Both Myka and I encountered your mother when the regents met to determine my fate,” she says. 

“She lent Helena her jacket,” Myka adds, and Helena remembers golden-brown tweed with a soft perfume, and nods confirmation. “Pete, it was her. Mrs. Frederic called her Jane.”

“Yeah, okay, my mom _is_ called Jane,” Pete admits, “but it’s not like that’s exactly a rare name, right? Maybe Mom has a doppelganger somewhere. There’s no way she’s a regent!”

“Pete, even if this is hard for you to believe right now, the main thing is that she’s in danger,” Myka says urgently and they all turn towards the large double doors between the hallway and the ER. “Two regents have died of unnatural causes, and Pete, that was an artifact your mom’s been tortured with,” Myka says softly. “Two might be coincidence, but three’s a pattern; you _know_ that.”

There is no one else in the room with them – according to the large wall clock it is 3:05 a.m. – but Myka leans even closer to Pete and Helena as she continues. “If we hadn’t gotten here in time, because of your vibe, who knows what might have happened?”

A thought slides into Helena’s mind and makes her blood run cold. “Myka,” she says in a shaky voice, “if they are targeting regents, they might also target other non-agent…” Her voice peters out and she whirls to where her purse sits, and starts digging in it for her phone. “I have to call Leena,” she explains when she has found it, and then her treacherous hands fumble on the lock-screen until Myka takes the phone from her and hands it back unlocked. “Thank you.”

Helena’s heart beats in her throat. For a moment she is morbidly grateful that they are in a hospital already; if her fear turns out to be reality, her heart is going to give out. The phone rings, and never has the time between one ring and the next been so excruciatingly long; Helena would swear that on any number of holy texts. 

It takes six rings for Leena to answer the phone. It takes about fifteen seconds longer for her to understand what Helena is asking, and to reassure Helena that everything is alright. It takes a fraction of one second for Helena to sink back into her seat, shaking like a leaf in a storm, phone clattering to the ground. It takes a few moments longer for her to realize that there is a warm hand on her shoulder. 

Myka. 

Myka, who is talking to her. “-everything alright?” she is asking. 

Helena nods weakly. “Yes,” she croaks for good measure. 

Pete has picked up the dropped phone and is talking with Leena and looking Helena’s way with sympathy, she notices; a first in a long time. Then he ends the call and hands Helena her phone back. “All good,” he says. “Leena has activated all security measures, and everything checks out over there. Steve is with her; Artie is at the Warehouse – Leena is talking with him right now to tell him what happened.”

“I have to tell him about the other regents,” Myka says at once, dropping her hand from Helena’s shoulder and rising from her chair. Helena misses her hand’s warmth as the younger woman retrieves her Farnsworth and dials Artie’s number. 

As Myka strides to the other end of the waiting area to talk with Artie, Pete moves to sit on the chair she just vacated. “Hey, um… thanks,” he says without looking at Helena. “You saved my mom’s life out there and…” he stops to search for words, then shrugs and repeats, “thanks. That was solid.” And he holds out his hand. 

Helena looks at the proffered appendage and blinks. Then she gingerly takes it, and gets pulled into a mighty hug. 

“I’m glad that your kid is okay,” Pete whispers into her neck, as fiercely as a whisper can be delivered. Then he lets go and returns to his former posture, forearms on knees and hands clasped together. “She’s great.”

Helena inclines her head with a smile. “She is that,” she says proudly. Then her face falls. “If only I was as great a mother to her,” she sighs, and will blame the lateness of the hour and the enforced intimacy of a hospital’s waiting room for this disclosure, should anyone ask. 

Pete nods, hands steepled above his knees. “Yeah,” he sighs, “yeah, man, I know _that_ train of thought. Believe me, I was happy that Amanda and I never had kids; I would _not_ have been a good dad at that point.”

Amanda Martin, Helena remembers from the files MacPherson had handed her three – no, two years ago. Her brain still insists on confusing the timeline at the most inopportune moments. Amanda Martin married Peter Lattimer in 2001, divorced him in 2006, remained in the Marine Corps while he transferred to the Secret Service. The idea that, had things gone differently, Pete might now be the father of a child close to Christina’s age, insinuates itself into Helena’s thoughts and refuses to leave. 

“Hey, H.G., I had a couple buddies in the Marines who had kids, you know?” he goes on. “And they… we talked about that. Every now and then. How they hoped that what we were doing would make the world a better place for their kids, but also how the things we had to do were… not things that you’d ever tell your kids about. A bit… messy, sometimes. I mean we were soldiers, we were out there on the frontlines; things tend to get messy, you know?” He stares unseeingly ahead and shakes his head. “And then you shower and you clean yourself up and you go talk to your kids on the phone and you do _not_ tell them how your day was, in so many words, you get what I mean?”

Helena nods. His experience, or rather those of his comrades, are nowhere near relevant to what she is feeling, but he _is_ extending the hand of friendship telling her about them, and that makes more than up for it. “I do,” she says, and then Myka is back with them.

“Regent security is sending out a roll-call to all regents,” she says darkly. “Artie agrees that this is a bad situation. We-”

The doors open and a frazzled-looking dark-skinned woman of middle age comes through, rubbing her hands down her scrubs. “Mister Lattimer?” When Pete rises from his chair, the woman heads towards him. “I’m Doctor Bhuiyan,” she says, nodding in greeting. “Your mother is alright, given the circumstances.”

Pete’s face, which had lit up at ‘alright’, falls again at ‘given the circumstances’. “Circumstances? What circumstances?” he asks, in a voice as dry as ashes. Helena watches Myka step up next to him and touch his arm for support. 

“She did suffer a major heart attack,” Doctor Bhuiyan says dryly. “You cracked three of her ribs doing CPR, but that’s not a big deal. She’s just going to be sore for a while.” She smiles. “Cracked ribs are a sign of CPR done right, so props for that,” she adds. Pete grimaces, and she goes on, “We stabilized her and she’s in no immediate danger, but I’d like to run some tests – it seems to have come out of the blue, given her general condition, and I want to figure out how someone as healthy as your mother,” she stops and gives Pete a significant look before adding, “and she _is_ remarkably healthy, could land here with a coronary vasospasm severe enough to induce cardiac arrest. Did anything happen tonight that might have set this off? Significant emotional stress? A massive fright, maybe?”

Pete blinks and shakes his head. “Not that I know of,” he lies, admirably easily from Helena’s point of view. “I don’t live here, though, so I don’t really know how she spent her night.”

The doctor accepts this without asking further questions, for example what Pete, and by extension his two female companions, might have been doing in his mother’s house at two in the morning if he does not live here. She is a doctor, not an investigator, Helena tells herself, and resolves to be grateful for small mercies. 

The doctor leads Pete away to look in on his mother – “Only for a moment, but you can return during visitor’s hours. Don’t wake her up if she doesn’t wake on her own, alright? She’s fine even if she’s asleep.” – and Helena moves to stand beside Myka. 

“A horrible fright,” she says in somber tones. “I’m grateful we arrived in time.”

Myka nods absentmindedly. “I’ve been going through the Warehouse’s Most Wanted List in my mind, trying to figure out who might be behind this,” she says after a moment. “But what I don’t understand is how anyone can have this much intel on who the regents are. I mean Claudia barely got into our computer system, and that only because MacPherson helped her.”

“If whoever did this found one regent and tortured them, he might have found out about other regents that way,” Helena replies. 

“Let’s not restrict ourselves to men here,” Myka states firmly. “Or to one individual.”

“You are right,” Helena says, “We mustn’t think ourselves into a corner. We are facing a person, or persons unknown, with access to at least three regents and at least one artifact.”

Myka nods. “At least one _stolen_ artifact,” she specifies. “You knew about the Stirrup, which means, I assume, that it was in the Warehouse when you were an agent.” When Helena nods confirmation, Myka sighs exhaustedly. “Then again, it might not have been stolen recently. A lot of artifacts were lost during the transfer from 12 to 13 and when the first Warehouse 13 burned down,” she says and flops into a chair. She buries her head in her hands and Helena’s fingers itch to follow the trails that Myka’s fingertips have blazed – into her curls and through them, if only for creature comfort. And if she is not quite sure whose comfort the motion would serve, is that a bad thing, per se?

“I remember reading MacPherson’s data about the fire, and the difficulties surrounding the transfer,” she says instead, sinking into the chair next to Myka’s. “Both events sound chaotic enough to misplace or lose artifacts, or have them stolen from you.”

Myka inhales through her nose. “Plus, we haven’t really got a full inventory yet of everything MacPherson stole,” she adds. “I mean, yes alright, we all hate doing inventory, but it _is_ good to know what you have and where everything is, exactly for cases like this.” She lets her hands fall and sinks back into her chair. “I bet we didn’t even know that the Stirrup was gone until it appeared here, hurting someone one of us loves.”

There is little Helena can say to that – Warehouse 12 has never been much better at keeping track of its artifacts; it seems that even with a modern computer system the task is too Sisyphean to accomplish. However, now that they have a bit of time and are alone with each other- “If I might change the topic,” she says quickly, before she might lose her nerve, “there is something I wanted to talk with you about. Regarding what we spoke of earlier today.” 

Myka turns her head to look at Helena. Her eyes are tired and discouragingly fatalistic. “Helena,” she sighs, “it’s _way_ too early in the morning to-”

Pete returns, and the moment is gone. Helena might have pressed the issue despite Myka’s misgivings about the hour, but now Myka has her hands full with comforting Pete. 

He ends up finding a motel that allows twenty-four-hour check in, and books himself into it ‘at least until Jeannie gets here’, which is what Myka and Helena will tell Artie if he asks. Myka has no further knowledge of how strong of a force ‘regent security’ is and if or when members of said force will be dispatched to protect Jane Lattimer. Helena does not doubt that unless and until that happens, Agent Lattimer will be at his mother’s door or in her actual room in lieu of an armed guard. 

Helena volunteers to drive Myka and herself back to Univille – it is well after four by now and the streets are well near deserted. Myka throws a few remarks her way about not being able to get any sleep with Helena behind the wheel, and yet she is in Morpheus’ arms even before they pass the sign delineating Buffalo’s city limits.

Helena wants nothing better than to watch Myka sleep, but it is her task to deliver both of them to Univille safely, and that will not be helped by swerving off the road or by stopping the car, so she keeps her eyes resolutely front. She cannot help but ponder her next steps, though.


	13. Chapter 13

The next few days are pure chaos, and Myka’s in the thick of it. All agents, and that still includes her and excludes Helena, are called to help with providing security to a regent meeting; the meeting is compromised by a guy with a spray paint can that was used to graffiti the Berlin Wall and now corrodes anything its paint comes into contact with; Pete saves the day by some quick thinking; Steve is fired by Mrs. Frederic (which, okay, Myka didn’t really know him much, but, _really?_ ); Myka saves Kosan and another regent but loses a third regent and the head of their security detail; and Artie takes one look at the shackle that the dying regent has passed to the surviving regent and flat-out _blanches_. He insists that all the chaos that just happened was bait, to lure them away from the Warehouse and leave it vulnerable with only Leena staffing it, but when they return to Univille they find out that it’s not the Warehouse that was targeted. 

It’s the B&B. 

Helena and Christina are gone.

Pete heads back to Buffalo immediately, to check up on the security measures the regents have in place around his mother. Myka is reeling, until Claudia dives into the security files in Artie’s office, works her magic and discovers surveillance footage of a car leaving the B&B’s driveway and later appearing at Featherhead airport. The airport’s security cam footage shows two men, a woman and a child boarding a private plane. The woman and the child are Helena and Christina, of course. One of the men is in an electric wheelchair; the other… is Steve Jinks. 

Claudia staunchly refuses to believe that Steve has turned on the Warehouse so quickly, no matter how much Artie insists that being fired can sometimes lead people to make very emotional decisions. Myka only half listens to their argument; she’s scanning every square inch of footage for signs that either Helena or Christina are hurt (none) or in distress (plenty) and what might be going on (none). Christina is clutching her plush Toothless the dragon, though, so Myka cuts into Artie’s and Claudia’s bickering and tells Claudia to get to work tracking the GPS chip inside the toy.

“Got it,” Claudia calls out after not even a minute. “Their plane is, I mean, the toy, I mean the GPS chip, inside the toy, presumably inside the plane, is over the Canadian West Coast.” She shows her screen to the other agents, pointing at the moving dot. “Headed towards Alaska, of all places, or possibly Russia.” She pushes off with her feet and makes her office chair roll to a different computer. “Okay, switching computers so that the GPS monitor will stay active on that screen-” she flashes Myka a smile that tries very valiantly to be reassuring, “while I look if I can find out more about the plane they’re on.” Myka nods, eyes glued to the little, red, blinking dot. 

Finding details on the plane takes Claudia a bit longer, then she leans back and stretches until her knuckles pop. “It’s leased by A to Z Tech, and _that_ is a shell company within a shell company, within another shell company, but I’ve managed to trace it to one name – Walter Sykes. Mean anything to any-?”

Artie flopping into a chair with a stunned expression stops her. “Oh my god,” he whispers. “Walter Sykes. Of course.” He stares blankly into space.

Claudia turns to him and waves a hand in front of his eyes. “Care to share, Artie-Bear?” she asks. “‘Cause this sounds important.”

“James and I took an artifact off of Walter Sykes when he was a boy,” Artie snaps. His mouth purses sharply, then he adds, “Walter Sykes is the man in the wheelchair. The artifact allowed him to walk, run, play baseball. He was… he was ten.” He looks up at Claudia and adds, “Pete’s mother was involved, too. The Warehouse ‘solicited her expertise’ in handling young children. We thought we’d found him and the artifact early enough, but…” He stares off into thin air again, then shakes himself out of it and rubs his face vigorously. “Collodi’s Bracelet,” he says curtly. “Allows a paralyzed person to walk again, plants a seed of darkness in them. We’d hoped we’d gotten to him before that happened, but…” he gestures meaningfully at the GPS tracking screen.

“Do you think he wants it back, then?” Leena, who’s been standing near the door with her arms crossed, asks. 

“Wouldn’t you?” he asks back quietly.

“But why does he need Helena and Christina for that?” Myka asks then grits her teeth when the answer stares her in the face. “Okay, yes, okay, a swap. Blackmail. But if that’s what he’s planning, why are they flying away from here?”

“Could be he wants to be beyond the reach of US authorities,” Artie reasons, but he frowns while he does so. “Maybe he is headed to Russia after all.”

Claudia scoffs openly while Myka hides her disbelief. “Why would he kidnap H.G. Wells and her daughter and then go to Russia?” the young agent asks. 

“My idea is as good as yours,” Artie bristles. “He’s obviously playing a long game.” 

Myka nods. “The first regent death that we can trace to him occurred over half a year ago. Whatever he’s planning, he’s been at it for at least that long, probably longer.” Part of her mind is beginning to assemble a profile on him based on what she knows, which is precious little at this point. She has high hopes in Claudia’s ability to give her more in the near future, though. “Flight trajectories for longer flights often go along a curve,” she adds. “On the other hand, a plane as small as his doesn’t have the range of a larger one, so maybe he’s going up there to refuel before heading Russia… or into Asia?”

“On it,” Claudia says, opening a few new searches. 

“Until we know what his endgame is, there’s precious little we can do,” Artie growls, then leans over Claudia at her computer. “Any hints on that?” he asks. 

Claudia shakes her head, frowning at the screen. “Not-” A proximity sensor interrupts her with a beep, and they all turn towards the monitor that lit up at the same time. 

“A courier service?” Leena says out loud what they’re all thinking. The car on the monitor does have a very distinctive logo on its side.

“It’ll go through our scanner in three, two, one…” Claudia says, then hunches over yet another monitor, watching the readouts of infrared, x-ray, and assorted other scans that hopefully will tell them if this is truly a simple courier car or another attack. “Clear,” she says after a moment.

Barely a minute later, a sharp booming noise reverberates through the office as someone knocks on the door. They all stare at each other.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Artie mutters, grabs a Tesla, and hurries off. 

When he returns, he holds a small package out with both hands and straight arms, as though it’s a vial of unknown poison or a deadly disease. “Truly and honestly a courier service,” he announces. “Someone sent this to our actual postal address by express delivery.” He gently sets the package onto his desk and rummages through the drawers until he finds something that looks like the metal detectors TSA agents use. Taking great care, he runs it over the small box. “Clear,” he mutters, sounding relieved, and tosses the detector back in its drawer. Then he hands the box over to Claudia. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”

There’s a small lighter in the box, and nothing else – no note, no instructions, nothing. Claudia scans it for fingerprints and then turns around open-mouthed. “Steve,” she breathes, and Myka remembers that over the last few months, Claudia and Steve have become friends. “This has Steve’s prints all over it.” 

“Steve!” Artie lunges for the lighter, but Claudia turns in her chair and pulls it out of his reach. 

“But Steve doesn’t smoke,” Leena says. 

“I know!” Claudia exhales excitedly. “His father was a chain smoker; Steve hated smoking.” She turns the lighter around in her hands. Something clicks, and Claudia whoops. “Bingo!, as the purple-haired old lady said to the priest. Micro flash drive! That’s my boy.”

“What is that?” Artie asks suspiciously, eyeing the little card Claudia has pulled from the lighter.

“Steve doing his job,” Claudia snaps back and inserts the card into a reader – or tries to, anyway. Artie lunges at her again and they scrabble for a moment while Leena and Myka look on in confusion. Claudia wins out – this is happening more and more often, part of Myka notices. 

“You don’t know what’s on there!” Artie all but wails, wringing his hands in imploration. 

“Dude.” Claudia shoots him a withering look. “If you honestly believe that this,” she indicates the reader with a nod of her chin, “is connected to anything but a standalone computer that scans for malware, I’m seriously put out with you. Have you taught me nothing?” she adds in mocking tones. The computer beeps, and she turns back to it. “Huh,” she says. “Video file.” She clicks on it, and everyone present gathers behind her as the video software window opens.

“Hey, guys.” It is indeed Steve Jinks in front of the camera, very close to the lens and with nervousness in his eyes. “Not much time, so I’ll keep it short. I’ve got nothing on Sykes’ end game; he plays it pretty close to the vest. But I can tell you that he’s made travel arrangements to Hong Kong. I don’t know why, but, as you know by now, it’s definitely not a pleasure trip. Sykes has this… uh, riding thing? Stick? Definitely an artifact; he can control people with it.” Head tilted, Steve re-thinks his words and amends, “Well, their bodies anyway. That’s how he got to Miss Wells. She and Christina are okay, as much as can be,” he adds, and Myka breathes a little easier. “There’s one other thing,” he goes on. “No, two. Sykes’ number two, Marcus Diamond, is still here. I mean in Univille. Some kind of task, and my guess is it’s to do with the Warehouse. That man gives me the serious creeps, you guys.” Steve swallows, looks around himself, leans even closer to the camera, and mutters, “He… he doesn’t… he doesn’t _die_. That’s the other thing I mean. Miss Wells shot him before Sykes got to her; shot him point blank, two times,” he taps his chest, “right in the heart, and he was back on his feet a minute later. He gets this _look_ , though, when Sykes brings out this wooden box; it’s probably another artifact and I’d bet it’s connected to his resurrection. Artie, you should check it out.” He looks to the left and frowns, then turns back to the camera, his hand already rising to stop the recording. “Gotta go. Agent Steve Jinks signing off.”

“I knew it!” Claudia crows and punches the air and scowls at Artie. “He hasn’t turned on us, he’s undercover!”

“Hong Kong,” Artie mutters, “Hong Kong, Hong Kong – why Hong Kong? What’s in Hong Kong?”

“Something we thought was gone and buried forever,” a new voice comes from the door. “Walter Sykes may have uncovered the ancient Regent Sanctum,” says Mister Kosan.

Myka has severe misgivings about how Kosan can just waltz in here without setting off any perimeter alarms, regardless of his role as whoever-he-is among the regents, but Artie doesn’t seem alarmed by that. 

In fact, the old agent is shaking his head. “The Regent Sanctum was constructed during the era of Warehouse 7,” he says, “It predates H.G. Wells by _centuries_. What does Sykes want with her?” 

“No idea,” Kosan admits in his urbane voice. “All knowledge of the sanctum was purged from Warehouse records when it was finally shut down for good.”

“That was over one hundred years ago,” Artie mutters. 

Myka’s fingers itch to get at whichever files, manuals or archives he’s got _that_ particular information from, because she’s pretty sure that’s where Helena is headed and that means that that’s where she, Myka, is headed as well, and she wants all the intel she can get. It also rankles that there is _still_ stuff that Artie keeps to himself – she’s never heard of such a thing as the Regent Sanctum before. 

“If it was just a meeting place, why would he even care about it?” Artie goes on while next to him, Claudia is typing away at one of the computers. 

“Got it,” she says, looking over her shoulder at them. All of them, again, convene behind her chair and look at the map she’s called up. “See that?” There’s a red dot over Juneau airspace, and a curved flight trajectory behind it. In front of it, a reddish-tinged area that looks like a hurricane path projection covers East Asia from the Arctic down to the Philippines. “Based on his flight path so far,” Claudia says, “this is where he’s probably going, and how far he’ll likely get when refueling in Anchorage. Hong Kong?” She points to a dot in the middle of the reddish tinge. “Definitely within his range.” 

“They’re gonna get there before us,” Myka says, and notices her throat is dry as sandpaper. 

Kosan nods. “And he has an advantage,” he adds. “He knows where the sanctum is, and we don’t. We can only follow his trail.” He smiles a grim little smile. “However, in the light of what’s going on, Agent Bering, we are going to give you whatever assistance we can to ensure that you and your partner aren’t going to be too far behind. There’s a helicopter waiting outside to transport you to Denver International Airport, where you and Agent Lattimer will board a plane that we chartered for this purpose. It will take you to Hong Kong will all possible speed. No doubt Agents Donovan and Nielsen will provide you with further details during your flight. Now.” He tilts his head at her. “Come with me, please.”

Myka swallows uncomfortably, and barely notices Leena reaching out a small water bottle from the office stash. She grabs one of her four overnight bags (one here, one at home, one at the B&B, one in her car – she likes to be prepared even now that she’s only doing research, and tries not to gloat whenever a less-prepared co-worker has to re-wear their clothes), waves vaguely at the open-mouthed assembly, and heads after Kosan.

There is indeed a helicopter. There is a very excited Pete (“A chopper, Myka! An honest-to-God chopper!!”) in Denver, plus a downright luxurious plane that seems massively oversized to Myka until she remembers that this flight isn’t going to Colorado Springs, this flight is going over seven thousand miles across an ocean. The kerosene alone must call for a plane at least this size – maybe they won’t even have to refuel; that would save them an hour or two. There’s a galley and bathroom right behind the door, but that’s where the similarity stops to any plane Myka’s ever been on. Behind the galley are four first-class sized seats facing each other two by two, and behind _those_ there’s a lounge area with sofa on one side and a credenza opposite it, another row of six first-class seats, and a compartment wall that leads to God-knows-what in the back of the plane. Myka shakes her head and takes one of the leather-upholstered seats – this is wild. She’s never flown in this kind of splendor before, but the circumstances are far too dire to enjoy it. 

Pete’s seat is in reclining position already, point two seconds after he’s sat down. “Man, this is awesome,” he sighs, shuffling his butt into an even more comfy position. “Those regents, huh? Wonder how much money they blew on this.” His eyes grow wide. “Wonder if my mom ever flew on this without telling me.”

“No idea,” Myka says tersely. Her pre-flight routine of stowing her water bottle, ear plugs, phone, charger, and everything else she needs on a long-distance flight is thrown off by not having a pouch in front of her to stow them in – figuring out where there are places to put her things in makes her antsy. It’s half past one in the morning, and she’s dead tired and really should sleep, but as fidgety as she feels, she’ll be happy if she can _doze_. 

Whenever she closes her eyes, security cam footage of Christina and Helena plays on the insides of her lids. 

The flight attendant – yes, the woman confirms with a practiced smile, one flight attendant for two people, isn’t that nice, and her name is Jamila – tells Myka that there are drawers _here_ and _here_ and pushes on small buttons that make cubicles open up and swallow Myka’s things. She’s too tired to process, too tired to protest, and apparently Jamila judges her dazed expression correctly, for she says, “If you would come with me, please, ma’am,” and leads her to the back of the plane and through the mysterious compartment door.

There are beds behind that door. Beds. 

Myka blinks. 

Two full beds, with duvets and pillows. All made up. 

“As soon as we’re in the air,” Jamila says, “you’re free to make use of these. They’re fold-downs, really,” she adds with a conspiratorial wink. “If this were a daylight flight, these would be sofas you could sit on, but I figured that since this is a red-eye, I’d get them ready for you.”

Myka blinks at her and feels stupid, too tired to respond in any sensible way. “Wow,” she manages finally, and the woman smiles. There are crow’s feet around her eyes when she does – it’s not what Myka expected on a private plane, if she is quite honest to herself. A preppy blonde twenty-something, yes; not a hijab-wearing woman in her forties. 

“First time on a plane of this kind?” Jamila asks, in an understanding tone of voice, professional enough not to sound patronizing. Her next words explain it. “I’ll be honest with you,” she says, and a slight Floridian tinge seeps into her voice, “I love having first-timers on board. Makes me re-appreciate the luxury as if it was new, you know what I mean?”

Myka nods, Jamila grins at her, and they make their way back to the front. 

“Mykes, this plane has its own _app_ ,” Pete says, leaning over his armrest to show her his phone. “Look at this!” He touches his screen, and the lights dim over his chair. He whoops and grins and is, in general, much too awake for this time of night. 

“Cool, yeah,” Myka murmurs and yawns. 

“Jeez, Myka, could you be any more subtle,” he gripes. “We’re on a private plane, for crying out loud!”

“Yes, Pete,” Myka sighs, “yes, we are, but it’s also,” she checks her watch, “one forty-three in the morning, and I’m… I’m exhausted.” She sinks into the cushioning of her chair and has to admit it’s pretty amazing how soft it is. The leather feels like a friendly touch. “I’m sorry I’m not more enthusiastic,” she adds. “Really I am. It’s just…”

“Yeah,” he says with a look that is pure Pete – understanding, a bit resigned, but also full of compassion. “Yeah, I get it. We’ll find them, okay?”

Tears shoot into Myka’s eyes. “Don’t,” she rasps. “Pete, just… just don’t, okay?” Why is he choosing now all of a sudden to stop cold-shouldering her? When today, tonight, right now, she really can’t handle him being solicitous? 

“Shutting up right now,” he says immediately. Then, to the flight attendant, “When do we start?”

Jamila also checks her watch. “We’ll taxi out in three; take-off in five, according to the last I’ve been told,” she says. “Probably better if you strap in now,” she adds with a smile. “I’ll be up front, and back with you in about twelve minutes.”

Pete whoops again when the plane’s engines fully engage, but in deference to Myka, his volume is slightly curbed. “Yeah baby,” he calls out when they lift off, after the shortest stretch of acceleration Myka has ever experienced. 

True to her word, Jamila is back once the plane finishes its first climb. She hands Pete a bowl – an honest-to-God crystal bowl, for _Pete_ – of snacks, because flight attendants can read people as well as any law enforcement officer can, then turns to Myka. “Would you like something to help you sleep, ma’am?” she asks. “We have melatonin on board, and we also have a fully stocked bar. Or hot milk, if you like,” she adds with her easy smile. 

“I’ve got melatonin,” Myka replies, which, she realizes belatedly, isn’t exactly the most helpful of answers. She smiles tentatively. “But yeah, hot milk would actually be kinda nice.” Her thoughts still churn like maelstroms, but she does have strategies for that – she wouldn’t be Myka if she hadn’t. She pushes buttons until the cubicle opens that holds her phone and headphones, grabs them, pushes more buttons until she finds her melatonin, grabs that too, and heads aft with a short glance at Pete. 

“G’night,” he simply says, then goes back to his phone, scrolling, by the looks of it, through the list of movies available as in-flight entertainment. The screen hung on the wall is large, easily four times the size of economy-class seat-back screens. Myka nods to herself – Pete will be fine; probably asleep in his seat before the first act of whatever he picks is over. He’s always had this knack, and she’s always envied him, but-

She’s heading to bed. On a plane. 

She has no idea if the plane’s noise – audible, if much less so than on a typical plane – will be another thing that keeps her from sleep, but when Jamila, after showing Myka everything she needs to know, including the en-suite bathroom (en-fricking-suite fricking bathroom!), when Jamila closes the compartment door with a friendly “Good night”, the engine roar is even less noticeable than it was in the main cabin. 

Myka gets changed, plugs in her headphones, starts up her on-a-plane-and-want-to-sleep audiobook, and is asleep in minutes.

She sleeps for eight blessed hours, and wakes up feeling a little disoriented, a little hungry, and not at all like she’s just slept on a plane. Jamila, when Myka comes to the galley for breakfast and remarks upon the fact, replies that the plane’s cabin pressure, unlike that of commercial airplanes, is set to simulate an altitude lower than that of Denver. Oh, and no, they don’t need to refuel; they’re just crossing the Bering Sea, as a matter of fact. “Any relation?” Jamila asks with a twinkle in her eyes, and Myka replies that her father has always hinted at being a distant grandson of the explorer, but has never outright stated any real family connection. “I think he was just being coy about it,” she adds.

As she eats her granola and yogurt, Myka ponders that the ultra-rich travel in even more comfort than she ever thought they did. For a second – for not even a second – the thought hits her that Helena is pretty rich. Could she afford-? Then Myka snorts at herself. Yes, traveling like this is nice – amazing, even. But they are on a mission. Besides, the carbon footprint of one plane for five people just _cannot_ be defensible.

Later, when Pete’s awake too, he expands on why the regents should always charter private planes for their agents. Myka tries the ‘mission’ line on him, and he argues back that being well-rested instead of groggy after a red-eye commercial flight will heighten their chances of success, but even he can’t keep a straight face as he says it. “Aw, c’mon, Mykes, a boy can dream, yeah?”

They go over the material that Claudia has sent them over night – “In-flight Wi-Fi, Mykes!” – on the two artifacts Steve has mentioned: Cecil B. DeMille’s Riding Crop is the one that Sykes wields to control people’s movements, Johann Maelzel’s Metronome the one that keeps Marcus Diamond from dying. 

“So if we see Sykes messing around with a metronome, we just stop the tick-tock-y thing?” Pete asks, mimicking the motion with one index finger and stopping it with the other. He shrugs. “Seems easy enough.”

Myka has to agree. “And the thing to keep in mind about the Riding Crop is that it can only be used on one person at a time. So if he uses it on me, you disable him and vice versa.”

“Suppose he uses it to make you draw your gun on me, though,” Pete theorizes. 

Myka swallows hard. “Then I’ll try very hard to miss,” she says. “Pete, I could never-”

“I know,” he says quickly, then repeats, far more softly. “I know. Me either. I mean it’s bad enough I barely see you anymore; I don’t want to put you six feet under.”

“About that,” Myka begins. 

He grins. “That was a joke, Mykes. I’d _never_ shoot you-”

“That’s not what I meant,” she insists, quite a bit more sharply than she really wants. He ducks slightly and looks away from her, and she almost relents and lets him evade this conversation, but if she can’t talk things out with Helena, she can at least make an attempt at talking things out with Pete – at least he can’t really get away from her here, not for the next five hours, anyway. “Pete… what’s going on?” she says. 

He rubs the back of his head and looks out of the window for a while. Myka can see his jaw work. When he turns his head around again, when he looks at her, he seems… smaller, somehow. Like a kid. A hurt, lost and lonely kid. “I… you know I lost my dad,” he says. “When I was twelve.”

Myka nods mutely. She has a vague idea where this might be going, and part of her regrets making him go through this, since it’s so obviously hurting him. 

“And then… it wasn’t too long after that,” he continues, looking out the window again, “that Mom started working again full time. I mean she had to, right? And then that fall, Jeannie went to college. Had nothing to do with Dad, of course, it was just… I was even more lonely then, and for me the two things kinda… they kinda connected in my mind, you know? I… I kinda fixated on that a little bit.” He sighs and drops his eyes. “Couldn’t shake this thought that… that everyone was leaving me.”

Of the two of them, it’s Pete who is the hugger, not Myka. But Myka really wants to hug him right now, because she understands where he’s coming from and why it’s hit him so hard that she’s stopped going on retrievals with him. Besides, hugging also means she doesn’t have to say anything, because what could she say? ‘I’m not leaving you’ would be insincere, because as he well knows, if Helena leaves, Myka will follow. ‘Nobody’s leaving you’ would be even worse, because people _do_ , all the time. 

She dithers a bit more, but then she wraps him in an awkward, seated-and-buckled-in sideways hug. “I’m sorry,” she says, “and I understand, and I’m sorry that I’ve been less… less there recently.”

He huffs out a laugh. “It’s not like I don’t get it,” he says. “I really do. It’s… it’s totally irrational, and selfish, and childish-”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not there, though,” Myka says, withdrawing her arms because the angle is too uncomfortable to keep it around his shoulders. “I mean we all have our…” she clears her throat, “idiosyncrasies. Our little weirdnesses we somehow have to deal with.” Something occurs to her and she wants to hug him all over again. “Kelly?”

He runs a hand over his eyes. “Yeah,” he sighs, “hit me bad when she broke things off. And then you, and then my-” his breath catches and he coughs to cover it up, “my mom just now…” He shrugs. “Been a bit rough lately,” he admits. 

Myka nods and keeps her quiet, and when he asks if she wants to watch Captain America and Thor all in a row, she agrees without a second’s hesitation. While she watches (for the third time, all told; once when it came out and once when she lost a bet to Pete on a retrieval in Montana) young and skinny Steve Rogers buff up, she tries very hard not to think about what losing Helena would do to her, or what losing her or, even worse, losing Christina would do to Helena, and what the mere fear of that loss might be doing to Helena right this very minute. 

When this is over and everyone is safe, Myka vows to herself, she’ll sit Helena down and talk with her. Maybe on this plane, or maybe in their house, but she’s not gonna let Helena evade the discussion anymore, and she’s not gonna accept evasions _during_ the discussion, either. 

She’s afraid for Helena, so much that it hurts. She loves Helena, again so much that it hurts. And in the past few months, they’ve been living together but it hasn’t been happy – if anything, nights where things haven’t been strained have been the positive exception from a dreary, exhausting drudge. Things can’t go on like this, Myka is determined, just as determined as she was when she came back from driving around and calling her sister, as she was before all this chaos started. 

Myka huffs out a laugh – if anyone had told her four months ago that she’d be living in the same house as Helena, not in the B&B but in a place of their own, she… well, she wouldn’t have believed it, for starters, or would have blushed and changed the topic at light speed. She most certainly would not have envisioned describing the experience as a drudge. 

Myka knows, in her heart of hearts, that she’s mostly over her trust issues regarding who Helena is and who she pretended to be. Helena is different from who she was before being whammied (and what exactly happened in that interaction between the Flute and the Coffee Pot they’ll probably never know; not only in terms of what Helena experienced, because Helena hasn’t breathed a word about it outside of that regents’ meeting, but also not in terms of how the two artifacts influenced each other, because the Coffee Pot is simply never around to actually examine and investigate). Of course Helena is different, Myka thinks; she has her daughter back, she’s given up her apocalyptical plans, she’s trying to come to terms with those two facts just like everyone around her is. Far less… cocky, much more daunted; still insatiably curious about the world at present, but far more given to exasperation, even frustration when she can’t figure something out. Which probably has a lot to do with feeling insufficient, and with culture shock, both in terms of locale and… well, time. 

Myka forgets all too often that Helena was born in fricking 1866. 

And that doesn’t just mean corsets and chignons, that means a completely different approach to agency, personhood, emotions, _especially_ when it comes to women. Steve Rogers feeling out of his depth seventy years onwards has nothing on Helena – at least Steve Rogers grew up with planes and automobiles. Helena is from the horse-and-buggy days; she has _said_ so. And Steve Rogers is the proverbial all-American guy; white, straight, young, able of body and mind - the world was built for him back then and it still is in the present. Of all of this, Helena shares being white and having a healthy body, but that’s it. The world surely wasn’t made for her in Victorian times, and even if it’s better now, it’s not by much.

And while this helps Myka understand why Helena has a hard time addressing her issues, it doesn’t make her less angry that Helena isn’t addressing those issues, at least not from where Myka stands. True, Helena _might_ be making some progress in the privacy of her own thoughts, but that’s just it: Myka is not privy to those thoughts, nor to any progress potentially being made. 

They really, really need to talk about all of this.

A stray thought hits her and she swallows a laugh as Thor throws his glass behind him: maybe she should ask Helena to put her hair up or dress in old-timey clothes for their sit-down talk. Maybe that’d help Myka remember Helena’s birth date. 

She doubts either suggestion would be well-received. 

They arrive in Hong Kong in the very early morning, and follow Claudia’s instructions to a restaurant in the city center. Despite the lavish breakfast they had on board, Pete suggests having food again until he stops talking and almost doubles over with the kind of vibe that has Myka frantic, given the circumstances. 

They head for the restaurant’s basement, because that’s what Pete’s guts tell him, and one level down they find Steve, who says Sykes posted him to guard this place, and then the three of them head another level lower and Myka finds a locket on the floor that she knows extremely well. Her throat runs dry ( _not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall_ ). She picks it up and clenches her fingers around it until her nails bite into her palm. 

Steve points to the wall behind the spot where Myka found the locket, and to the eye of Horus in the middle of it. Myka mimics pressing it and he nods, and so she does and the wall moves aside. There’s a staircase behind it, and at the foot of that, a weird chair with a chessboard in front and a dead Tyler Struhl in it. Walter Sykes sits next to it in his wheelchair with a sobbing Christina on his lap and the Riding Crop in front of her chest, and Helena Wells stands on the other side of the chess chair with agony all over her face and a gun in her hands.

A Riding Crop is not a weapon, though, and for the moment, Sykes is focused on Helena.

Quick as lightning, Myka raises her gun, aims, and shoots Walter Sykes right between the eyes.


	14. Chapter 14

Myka’s arm jerks around a fraction of a second before she pulls the trigger, and the shot misses Sykes completely. Christina screams, Sykes flexes the Riding Crop, and Myka’s hand opens, letting the gun clatter down the stairs. Her leg bends and her body’s center of weight shifts and her other leg comes up and roundhouse-kicks the Tesla out of Pete’s hands, and in the same motion, the gun out of Steve’s. Both of her hands grab Pete’s Tesla as it tumbles, and while Sykes with the Riding Crop fumbles the catch a little, a moment later her finger curls around the trigger and Pete and Steve crumble unconscious, rolling down the stairs like sock puppets. Then, totally without her volition, Myka’s hand tosses the Tesla after them. The whole interaction can’t have taken more than two seconds, three tops. 

“Ah, Agent Bering, so kind of you to join us,” the man drawls, jerking his head to invite her closer. Christina, held in his lap by the Riding Crop across her chest, is crying but very, very quiet, small and tense, and Myka hates Sykes just that much more for that. He also has Helena train her gun on Myka, which redoubles the agony in Helena’s eyes, and that curls Myka’s hatred another notch tighter. “And I see Mister Jinks has turned tails on me.” He tuts lugubriously. “Ah well,” he says then, “two more volunteers for the chess lock.”

“Chess lock?” Myka repeats, stalling for time as she makes her way down the stairs. It seems that now that she’s disarmed herself, Sykes sees Helena as the main danger to put under the Riding Crop’s influence again – she does have a weapon, after all. Briefly Myka regrets that when Sykes switched the Riding Crop’s control to her, Myka, Helena didn’t shoot him when she had the chance to move freely, but it went so fast and Helena’s been under a lot of stress. Plus, Myka knows Helena detests firearms, and at any rate the moment’s over now. They need to move forward, not look back.

“It was invented by a man named Caturanga,” Helena explains at a nod of Sykes’. “He was rather the Claudia of Warehouse 12 and my teacher.”

Myka nods slowly and glares at Sykes as she moves closer to him. As a trained Secret Service agent, she’s quite lethal in her own right, and she doesn’t doubt that Sykes knows that very well. At some point he’s going to have to switch the Riding Crop’s influence to her again – the artifact can only control one person at a time. Which means as soon as Myka is under its control, Helena would again be free to shoot at him – but there’s no telling if Helena would; both because of her distaste of guns and because, from Helena’s current angle, Christina would be in the line of fire. If only the gun were a Tesla instead. But that’s lying back where Pete and Steve are. 

“That’s why you needed Helena to open it,” Myka says, again trying to buy some time. “She’s the only living person who knew this Caturanga.”

Sykes nods, watching her approach attentively. “See, the pieces are set so the player’s in check.” He gestures at the board with his chin. “You win the game, and the lock opens. You lose the game,” he laughs and nods towards Tyler’s body, “and your skull opens.” Christina sobs, just the one sob, and another black mark appears on the tally in Myka’s mind.

“It appears that when the Regents shut down the Sanctum a century ago, Caturanga designed the lock,” Helena says. She glares at Sykes – the Riding Crop might control her motions, but it sure as hell doesn’t control her thoughts, her words, or the expression on her face. If looks could kill, Sykes would be a smear on the floor. “Mister Sykes here believes that I am able to open it. Caturanga taught me a thousand things, but I have never seen the chess lock before. I told you,” she snaps at Sykes, “I don’t _know_ how to open it.”

“I know,” he almost purrs, “and you clearly demonstrated with young Tyler, here.”

“You did that,” Helena spits back, looking at the riding crop. “I tried to stop you!” She turns her gaze to Myka. “Myka, I swear it,” she says tonelessly. 

Myka opens her mouth to assure Helena that she knows that, but before she can say anything, Sykes speaks up.

“You know what?” Sykes must have picked up on Helena’s tone of voice or the corresponding expression on Myka’s face, because his eyes narrow. “Maybe I used the wrong incentive.” He flexes the crop and Helena is at Myka’s throat in a heartbeat, one hand pressing the gun’s nozzle to her neck ( _forever destined to meet at gunpoint_ is the thought that flashes through Myka’s mind at that and she almost laughs hysterically), the other buried in her hair – Sykes has much more, much finer control over Helena’s motions, but then he’s had more practice with her. Myka has no choice but let herself be dragged to the axe chair, chess lock, whatever it’s called. As she is pushed into it, a clamp closes around her neck and the chessboard and axe whirr into life, and Christina screams and cries and twists in Sykes’ hold, and Myka can see the bruising force Sykes extends on the girl’s shoulder, can hear the hiss with which he makes her subside again. The man’s black marks just keep on mounting.

“Well,” Sykes intones, “now that there’s somebody in the chair you care about, maybe your memory will come back. And remember, Miss Wells – we still have another volunteer if you don’t get it right this time.”

Helena gives an involuntary shudder, and Myka’s breath stops. Helena wouldn’t react like this if Sykes was talking about Pete or Steve. Concern, yes, fear, yes, but not to this level. So if… if Helena doesn’t manage to beat this lock, not only will Myka die, but Christina will be next? But… Christina is too small; she wouldn’t fit in the chair, would she? Not without a… booster… Myka’s gaze falls to the pile of bones plus body of Tyler against the wall and she swallows. The metal of the clamp is already warming against the skin of her neck, she notices as her larynx moves under it.

Helena’s shoulders are tense and hunched, her arms a tight V with the gun, pointing down, at its apex. Her breath is coming fast and shallow, and her eyes flit here and there, filled with anguish to breaking point. Myka doesn’t feel very good, either, what with being strapped under a giant freaking axe blade that still has Tyler’s blood on it, but Helena – Helena is close to snapping under the pressure of all of this, and right now, she’s the only one not clamped down or unconscious, the only one with some kind of hope at saving the day. But for that hope to come true, for Helena to come through, she needs to not snap, and that means Myka has to help her through this. 

Myka takes a deep breath and wills her thoughts about axe blades and her misgivings about Helena’s past actions and present inactions and her discontent with the last few months – wills all of that behind doors and shuts them tightly and focuses on the woman in front of her.

Helena _will_ save the day. Myka will not die, and Christina will never sit in this chair. Myka’s eyes burn into Helena, trying to instill in her the absolute certainty that lives in Myka. Helena will come through. 

Helena is looking anywhere but at Myka. 

Myka sighs and addresses Sykes, stalling a bit more. “If we unlock this thing,” she calls out, “what are we going to find?”

“You’ll see,” is his curt reply. 

There’s despair in Helena’s voice as she asks, “Have you considered that we might be unlocking an artefact deemed too dangerous to be kept in Warehouse 7?”

Myka nods her agreement, still hoping that one of her actions will make Helena look her way. “She’s right, you know. The regents must have had a reason to keep people out.”

Sykes scoffs. “Don’t tell me about the regents or their reasons, okay?” He jostles Christina and the Riding Crop, to make Helena look at him, and Myka adds another black mark to his tally. “You have one choice,” he tells Helena, nodding at the axe chair. “Open the lock.”

Helena takes a shivering breath, and Myka can see her resolve falter. “Okay, now,” Myka says, pitched slow and low to catch Helena’s attention, “how do we beat it? 

Helena sighs, and her gaze sweeps the board. “This was Caturanga’s passion,” she says. “We played every day for years.”

Hoping against hope, Myka smiles. “You beat him all the time?”

Helena grimaces, still staring at the board. “Not once.”

Myka nods her understanding. “Alright.” And then, suddenly, be it because of her tone of voice or because of some other reason, Helena looks at her, Helena meets her eyes. Myka wills her eyes to transmit her calm to Helena – and she _is_ calm. Her life is in Helena’s hands, and Helena has just professed that she has no idea how to overcome this puzzle – but Myka is calm as a lake on a summer evening. Helena’s hands are a safe place for Myka’s life to be, any place, any time, any circumstances; that is one truth Myka knows in her bones, right here, right now. Helena’s eyes widen as she reads what’s riding on Myka’s gaze, but her shoulders do straighten ever so slightly.

“Time to make a move,” Sykes’ voice cuts through their locked gazes. 

Helena shakes herself out of it. “With Tyler,” she says with a deep breath and anguished look, “I… I chose the King’s Gambit.” Almost to herself, she adds, “Caturanga would have expected that.” When she frowns, it’s the same frown that sits on Christina’s brow when she puzzles over a line in a book. “Perhaps…” she goes on, narrowing her eyes, “yes, perhaps the… the Dragon’s Variant.” She looks at Myka. “Myka, King’s knight to E-6.”

Myka smiles slightly up at Helena as she moves her knight. This is it. This is Helena the puzzle-solver, Helena the odds-beater; this is Helena applying her intellect to the problem at hand. 

Then the black chess pieces start moving of their own accord.

The black queen takes Myka’s knight, protecting the king. 

“Check,” Myka says in a too-high voice, as if Helena wasn’t well aware of that. She has to help Helena keep her calm, but then the chair whirrs to live, tilting the axe blade through forty-five degrees. Step one, Myka assumes, probably out of three. Christina whimpers. 

Helena’s eyes barely flicker over to her daughter, and Myka would squeeze her hand if she didn’t think distracting Helena was a really bad idea right now – and if it wasn’t holding a gun, that hand. “Queen’s bishop to H-4,” Helena whispers.

Myka moves the bishop, and the black queen takes that one, too. Myka repeats, “Check,” and can’t help the wobble that’s in her voice nor her frightened gaze upwards as the blade tilts the rest of the way to hang directly over her. She bites down on the insides of her cheeks; she has to keep her calm. Christina is hiding behind her hands; her sobs are so silent, she’s trying so hard to be as quiet as Sykes wants her to be, but Myka can still hear her very clearly.

Helena cries out in despair, “I don’t know what else to do!”

“Helena,” Myka tries to reassure her, concentrating all her efforts into keeping her voice steady. 

“Continuing,” Sykes interjects with a meaningful glance at the board, but Helena ignores him. 

“Myka, I am sorry, so sorry,” she says, and sounds broken beyond repair. 

Myka inhales sharply. “Helena, listen to me.” And there the connection is, again, when Helena looks at her. How Myka wishes she could put a steadying hand on Helena’s shoulder right now, but her words, her voice, her gaze will have to do. “I am not going to die here today, okay?” she says, and believes with every fiber of her being that this is true. “Because you are going to take a breath, and you’re gonna save my life.”

Helena looks down into Myka’s eyes, but then her gaze grows distant for a few breaths, as if she remembers something. A peculiar kind of calm comes over her features, and she whispers, “Change the rules.”

“What?” Myka asks, wondering what Helena might mean by that. 

“Change the rules,” Helena repeats, more firmly this time. Her eyes are clear as a summer sky as she instructs, “Myka, D-3 to E-8.”

Myka frowns. “Helena, I, I… I can’t move my pawn like that.”

“I know,” Helena says, with what is almost a smile. “Change the rules,” she repeats for the third time. 

Myka stares at her. It’s been a while since she’s seen Helena this composed, this… _certain_. But there’s a massive axe blade hanging over Myka’s head, waiting to split it open like a goddamn _watermelon_ , and trusting anyone is kind of hard in a situation like that. 

But Helena isn’t just anyone. 

Helena has taken a breath, and is telling Myka what she is certain will save Myka’s life. 

Helena, whose hands are a safe place for Myka’s life to be. 

Helena, who’s standing tall and calm, telling Myka to make an invalid move that- 

Myka blinks. Moving her pawn to E-8 will checkmate the black king. She doesn’t even have to look down at the board; she knows it will. It’s an invalid move, but it does mean that the white player wins. Whatever Helena’s mantra of ‘change the rules’ is, wherever it comes from, this must be the solution: change the rules of how chess pieces move, and win the game. 

Myka lifts her hand, not breaking eye contact, and moves her pawn to E-8. There’s a clatter as she takes the black queen. Still not looking, she announces, “Checkmate.”

The whole room shakes, and there’s a grinding above Myka. She can’t help it – she looks up, but so does Helena. 

The blade retreats into its disengaged position. 

“You can look now,” Sykes whispers to Christina, and then, suddenly, there’s a bullet hole in his head.


	15. Chapter 15

Christina shrieks again, but as the Riding Crop falls from Sykes’ lifeless hands, Helena surges forwards and snatches her daughter up, all protestations of ‘you’re getting too heavy for this’ as forgotten as the gun that clatters to the floor from Helena’s hands.

This wasn’t the gun that killed Sykes, though; the angle still would have been wrong.

Myka looks around for the shooter and looks straight into Steve Jinks’ eyes. 

“Thought this might be a good move,” he says with a small smile. 

“Ayohhh, chess reference,” Pete hollers from behind him and offers a high five that Steve, who’s been partnered with him for months now, resignedly accepts. “We’ve been awake for the last minute or so,” Pete explains then, “and you gotta hand it to my man Steve here, he has bal-, um, nerves of steel,” he quickly corrects himself with a glance at Christina who, sobbing as she is in Helena’s arms, probably wouldn’t have noticed any mention of balls at this point. “Moved in super-slo-mo while you ladies had Sykes’ full attention, grabbed your gun, Myka, which, by the way, thanks for dropping nice and close to us, and then blammo!”

Steve just shrugs. Then, wincing slightly as his eyes fall on Helena and her daughter, he adds, “And sorry about… you know.”

Myka sighs, feeling about eighty percent of her worries fall from her shoulders as she exhales. “It _was_ the quickest solution all around,” she says. “I would’ve done the same thing.”

“I know,” Steve says with a half-grin, “I saw you. Pity Sykes saw you first.” Then he looks at the wall behind Myka. “So, uuh…” he says slowly. “What the heck is this, then?” 

The wall has become translucent, but not fully – they can see shapes and movement behind it, but nothing clearer than that. 

“Well, let’s check it out, huh?” Pete says, walking past Steve with his Tesla aloft, and goes straight towards the… portal, or whatever it is. 

“Pete!” Both Steve and Myka say it at once, and both of them take two steps in his direction, but Pete’s already through. They look at each other and shrug and roll their eyes and shake their heads. 

“I’ll go after him,” Steve says and looks over to where Helena sits huddled around a still-sobbing Christina. “You look after them?”

Myka nods and pats his shoulder. “Thanks,” she says before he leaves. “That was an amazing shot.”

He nods at her and follows Pete through the portal. 

Myka walks over to Helena and her daughter and kneels down next to them. “Hey,” she whispers softly, wrapping her arms around both of them. 

Helena lets out a shuddering sob, then, and turns and wraps one arm around Myka’s waist, burying her face in Myka’s jacket. Her hand clenches around the back of it, pulls the pleather painfully tight across Myka’s shoulder.

Myka couldn’t care less. 

“You did it,” she whispers to Helena. “You saved me, you beat the lock, you did it.” She gives a small, watery laugh. “I don’t ever want to hear you say you’re not enough for anything, okay?”

Helena laughs too, equally soggily. “Alright,” she whispers, and repeats, “alright.” Her other hand, the one that is not gripping Myka’s jacket, is cradling Christina’s shoulders, fingers slowly stroking dark curls.

There’s a bit of a commotion behind them, and Pete and Steve are back with Artie in tow. “Hey, uh, ladies,” Pete shouts urgently, “not to break up your little family reunion, but Artie here says the portal won’t be open much longer, now that the danger to the Warehouse is gone. You better get back unless you want another go in the regents’ plane. I mean I wouldn’t say no-”

“And you won’t,” Artie cuts him off, moving to Myka and tugging at her shoulder. “You and Steve are gonna help me get these two dead people here,” he points at Sykes and Tyler, “to the plane without the Chinese authorities catching wise, but _you_ three,” and he turns back to Myka, “you’re going home the fast way. That kid doesn't need a fifteen-hour plane ride, no matter how cushy the seats.” He grabs Myka’s upper arm and pulls upwards. “Come on, get up, move, move, move.”

Myka stumbles to her feet, keeping one arm around Helena, and one by one, the three of them get up off the floor. 

Then, Pete says, “uh-oh,” and moves towards Sykes. 

“What? Pete, what is it?” Myka asks at once. 

“I got a bad feeling about this,” Pete mutters. “Artie, how long should the portal stay open after the danger is over?”

“Danger? Do you mean Sykes?” Myka asks, feeling queasy. “Is he… does he not die, too, like Marcus Diamond? Is he still-?”

“Oh, he’s dead alright,” Pete says and pushes the man from his wheelchair a bit too nonchalantly. Then he points at the contraption. “No, it’s this _wheelchair_ that has me vibing out like mad sauce.”

“His… his chair?” Myka shakes her head, then she, Steve and Artie congregate around the machine. 

Artie’s hands wander around the chair’s left armrest and the motion control stick in it, then they stroke over the seat. He fastidiously avoids the spatters of blood on it – and then grabs, twists, and removes it. “Heavy for a seat,” he mutters, turns it over, and reveals-

“A bomb?” Steve fractionally loses his calm.

“Aw, man!” Pete moans. There’s a timer counting down, and it’s under ten minutes. 

“I know that writing,” comes a voice from behind them. Helena is approaching them, Christina ensconced on her hip. “That’s from the House of Commons in London. Whatever is it doing in a wheelchair seat?”

Artie closes his eyes. “Oh, no,” he says softly. “No, no, no-no-no-no-no-no-no!”

“How bad?” Steve simply asks.

“The House of Commons was partially destroyed during the Blitzkrieg of World War II,” Artie explained. “And there was a piece of masonry.” He points at the brick in the clear plastic container. “It was said to have absorbed the concussive force of the entire German Luftwaffe.” He looks up at them with horror in his eyes. “This is the artifact equivalent of a nuclear device, and it’s counting down.”

Everyone begins talking at once, spouting theories as to how best to defuse or destroy the bomb. Myka hunches her shoulders and stuffs her hands in her pockets. Her right encounters something thin and slinky, and comes back out of the pocket holding Helena’s locket. And suddenly the discussion about artifact bombs is just so much background noise. 

She looks at Helena, Helena in her caramel jacket and light grey shirt and skinny jeans, Helena who wears the twenty-first century on her skin but still struggles with it in her heart; Helena who still carries Christina on her hip, a red-eyed and exhausted kid with her black hoodie with Toothless eyes and faux-hawk on the hood and bright green sneakers with little LEDs in their soles that light up whenever she takes a step – Myka looks at these two and knows that whatever anger she’s been holding on to after Helena’s testimony, she’s ready to let go of. Myka opens that particular compartment in her mind, the one that she stuffed all the chaos into, and sees that the chaos has coalesced into one truth: these are the two people she loves. For better or worse, part of her thoughts whisper, and yes there are still issues, another part nods, but they pale in the light of Myka’s realization, they drown in the chorus of Myka’s thoughts agreeing: these are the two people she loves. 

She steps up next to Helena and calls out softly, “Hey.” When the other woman turns from the conversation and to her, Myka holds out the locket. Both pairs of eyes drop to the dangling pendant, both pairs of eyes look up and meet. Both mouths form tentative smiles. Helena reaches out one hand and curls her fingers around Myka’s hand and the locket in it.

Then Christina looks up too, and wails a sob and reaches out for Myka, and Myka steps forward and lets the kid pull her into a hug, wraps her arm around Christina’s back in turn, tightens her hold on Helena’s fingers, and holds both of them as close as she can.

It takes a few moments for her to become aware of the sudden silence. She pulls back slightly and turns her head to find three pairs of eyes staring at them. 

“Um… Mykes?”

“What?”

“You… um…”

“The bomb’s timer has stopped,” Steve says matter-of-factly. 

“The… the… What?” Myka frowns. What are they talking about? “Did you manage to defuse the bomb?” And if so, why are they looking so confused? Why are they looking at Helena and her?

Artie nods, and there’s a tiny twinkle in his eyes that he usually only gets when he’s amused, which Myka doesn’t understand, but, hey, the timer of an artifact nuclear device has stopped; that’s a good thing, yes?

Then, “ _You_ stopped it,” Artie tells her. “The three of you, I mean,” he amends, letting his eyes move over Myka, Helena, Christina. He nods his chin at the necklace hanging from Helena’s fingers. “Possibly aided by that locket; I _keep telling_ you,” his finger stabs in its direction in time with his words, “it _has_ to be an artifact by now.” 

“Artie, what-” Pete begins, and then turns and stares at the wall. “Oh no,” he mutters, “no, no, no, no!” 

As Myka turns, too – they all do – she sees what he means: the portal, or whatever it was, is closing. 

Pete takes a few quick steps and reaches out-

“Pete!” both Steve and Myka snap, again, and this time they’re fast enough – he withdraws his hand as though he’s been slapped. 

“Jeez,” he mutters, “just everybody pile on, will you?”

Artie, however, is nodding again. “That does make sense,” he says, and then explains something about Marcus Diamond and a cannon and a force field connected to, of all things, the shackle Myka saw Kosan fix on that other regent back then, and about prerequisites for _this_ portal to open in the _first_ place, and about one of those prerequisites no longer being present – by which he apparently means the bomb threat – which means the force field _and_ the portal will… and then his voice peters out and he looks at Helena, Myka and Christina again. “You really did defuse the bomb,” he says, and the gleam in his eyes is very, very gentle. “The House of Common’s Masonry was infused by Hitler’s hatred that he poured into the Blitzkrieg against Britain. An outpouring of,” he stops and clears his throat, “of, um, love, would do the trick to defuse it. Especially,” he adds, pointing vaguely at the locket, “one aided by an artifact.”

“Would you kindly drop that notion?” Helena says, rolling her eyes and pocketing the locket. “This is simply a memento. The only power it has is-” she stops and blushes slightly, and lowers her gaze. 

“-over you,” Myka finishes her sentence in a voice that’s barely more than a whisper. Then she shakes herself out of it and turns back to Artie. “Whatever the locket is or isn’t, Artie, are you _sure_ it defused the bomb?” How many people live in Hong Kong? Seven million? 

“Duh, Mykes,” Pete says from behind the wheelchair, “countdown has stopped _and_ ,” he nods at the no-longer see-through wall, “the Warehouse has closed the door on us.” He smiles. “Seems defused to me.” Then his smile grows into the goofiest grin Myka’s seen on his face in a long time, and he begins to sing – badly. “The power of love, a force from above-”

“Alright, alright, alright,” Steve interrupts him, “that’s too much, even for you.” He grabs Pete’s shoulder and shoves him towards where Tyler’s body lies. Pete, for his part, is making kissing noises over his shoulder as he is pushed along. 

Artie shakes his head at him, then looks at Christina, who has quietened down – mostly out of exhaustion. He sighs. “We’ll take care of things here,” he says, motioning behind him. “You guys head to the airport. Get some rest while you wait for us to catch up, then we’ll all fly home together.” A grin flits across his face. “Private planes,” he mutters, mock-scowling. “Just make sure it doesn’t leave without us.” He makes shooing motions and ushers them out, and neither of them protests his decision.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another long one. Again, I couldn't find a better way to wrangle it. I hope it works for you. Any feedback, of course, happily welcomed, on this or any other point that speaks out to you!
> 
> ~~~
> 
> Edited the chapter a little on 06-15, because for some reason it completely lacked any reference to what just happened with Sykes. *shakes head at self*

Helena has never been gladder to leave a place behind than she is now. Halfway up the stairs, Myka volunteers to carry Christina for a while, provided Christina is okay with letting go of her mother. When Christina slips from Helena’s grasp and onto Myka’s hip, ready as you please and without a single sound of protest, Helena’s heart grows wide all over again. 

Love, Artie has said. Pete has sung to it, even.

And Myka’s eyes have been very expressive.

Certainly whatever has happened in that moment has stopped a disaster. And just as certainly it has not magically dissolved whatever difficulties exist still between her and Myka – but _something_ clearly happened between them down there. Helena is too tired to make much sense of it; taking care of Christina takes precedence in any case. Christina, who she almost lost-

Her mind refuses to go there. But there is something else she has to let Myka know, and so she leans over Christina’s head and into the other woman as they settle into the taxi’s back seat, and says, “I’ve been meaning to tell you-” the taxi turns a sharp corner, and Christina shifts and settles more snugly into Myka’s side. Helena kisses the top of her daughter’s head before going on, “-that I have contacted a psychologist whose email address was forwarded to me by Mrs. Frederic. I’ve been assured she knows about the Warehouse already, and is prepared to hear some fantastic stories in the course of her duty.” 

Myka stares at her, looking thunderstruck. 

Helena rolls her eyes self-deprecatingly and adds, “I don’t have an appointment yet or anything of the kind, but I thought you ought to kn-”

The rest of her words is swallowed in a kiss – Myka’s hands have come up to grasp her cheeks, wide-spread and forceful, have pulled her in until lips met lips. Then Myka breaks away and leans her forehead against Helena’s, and laughs weakly. “Thank you.” Her whisper is as fervent as her kiss has been. 

“It was nothing,” Helena murmurs, unsure of what to say. After all, it is not as though she has done anything meaningful yet – unless… unless Myka counts the mere act of contacting a psychologist – from whom Helena has not even received a reply yet, what is more – to be meaningful in and of itself. Myka’s next words confirm that. 

“It’s not nothing, Helena,” she says quietly. “It’s a start.” She kisses Helena again, just a small peck, really, then repeats, “It’s a start. And it’s a step only you could have taken, therefore: thank you.” With one last quick squeeze, her hands drop from Helena’s cheeks, and Helena misses them immediately even if Myka is still close.

Helena raises her eyebrows as she considers this. “I suppose you’re right about that,” she says with a small smile. 

“Don’t let it get to your head, Wells,” Myka warns with a small chuckle. “A journey of a thousand miles and all that.”

“If you’re at my side,” Helena replies with her heart beating in her throat because while she assumes this will be the case, Myka has not outright stated it since the regent hearing, “a thousand miles will be a walk in the park. Wells and Bering, solving puzzles and saving the day,” she declares with mock pomposity. 

The breath of Myka’s laugh whispers across Helena’s cheek. “Charmer,” she says. “And it’s Bering and Wells, if anything.” 

Helena lets this pass with a chuckle. Then she pulls back, anxious to meet Myka’s eyes. “You will be, though,” she asks, “will you? At my side?”

The smile glides off Myka’s face at Helena’s imploring tones. “Yes,” she whispers. “Yes, I will be.” And she kisses Helena again, sweet and assured and full of the promise she just made.

When their lips separate, Helena breathes a soft sigh. Then a yawn assails her, much to her chagrin. 

Myka chuckles quietly. “When did you last get some sleep?” she asks. 

Helena tries to remember – Sykes and Diamond appeared at the Bed and Breakfast in the late afternoon; their flight took off sometime around six at night…

“I don’t even remember what time of day it was when we refueled in Anchorage,” Helena says, “or what time it is now, in terms of Mountain Daylight Time.” She can see Myka making the calculations, and quickly waves her off. “It doesn’t actually matter,” she adds, “It’s plainly been too long by any measure.” As if to prove her point, she has to yawn again. “I wonder if we could find ourselves a hotel room, however briefly,” she muses. Her eyes idly follow the sights outside the taxi’s window, taking in shapes, textures, colors without making much sense of them. 

Myka’s chuckle draws her attention back. “The plane that’s waiting for us has _beds_ ,” she announces. “Actual, real, horizontal beds, with sheets and blankets and pillows. As soon as we’re at the airport, they’re yours and Christina’s.” She shifts slightly in her seat, pulls Christina further into her lap, and offers Helena her shoulder. “Until then, just lean on me. I’ve got you.”

The taxi moves too erratically for Helena to do much more than doze, but that is not what refreshes her. It is the feeling that Myka’s ‘I’ve got you’ has woken; the surety that, right this very moment, the world does not need Helena Wells to pay attention, to be on the lookout, to handle things as they happen – Myka will take care of it. 

It is peculiar, this feeling, this surety, especially with Helena being as wrung out as she is. It whispers relaxation into regions of her brain that have not been relaxed for over a century, not since Christina’s father did what he did and left her. It reaches out and takes a load off Helena’s shoulders that she did not even realize she was carrying anymore. It takes her back to a time when a mother’s arms promised that all was well, when a father’s heartening laugh chased the darkness away, when a brother’s or sister’s bed was refuge from the monsters. Helena is aware of the taxi’s motions both jerky and smooth, of the scents within this car – upholstery, Myka, Christina, some olfactory remnants of food that she does not recognize – of sunshine on her closed eyelids every now and then, of horns honking and brakes screeching all around them and the hell Sykes put Christina and her through just now. But none of it reaches her. None of it means anything, because between all of it and her, there is Myka’s ‘I’ve got you’.

It is a most wonderful feeling.

When they arrive at the airport, Myka pays the driver and picks up Christina, whose exhaustion, now that she has been jostled awake again, manifests in crankiness. Her tears and protestations harken back to when she was much younger, and if Sykes were not dead, Helena would kill the man all over again for what he subjected her daughter to. 

Myka leads them to a closed-off lounge, where a middle-aged woman with a head scarf and friendly eyes welcomes them. Those friendly eyes quickly turn solicitous as Christina launches into another tantrum – as far as Helena can make out, this time Christina’s reasoning is the fast food restaurant they passed by which, now, Myka is refusing to carry her back to. Jamila, as Myka introduces the woman, quickly ushers them to the plane. They bypass all kinds of security and border controls in the space of barely three minutes, which surprises Helena and does not surprise her at the same time. Truly, the privileges of the rich have not changed. For this time, she is grateful of it, and swallows her bad conscience in favor of calming down her daughter. 

Myka beams proudly when Jamila opens the door to the plane’s bedroom. It seems to take forever to get Christina to at least take her shoes off – at some point Jamila intervenes and quite simply tells them not to worry; she has a dozen new sheets on board, she says conspiratorially before leaving them alone again. Helena concedes the point and concedes the fight, and ten minutes later, Christina is sleeping again, shoes firmly on her feet. 

Helena is too wound up now to consider the same route for herself, exhausted though she might be – and she is, by all the stars. She is pacing the – admittedly short – length of the bedroom, kneading her hands, sometimes tugging at her hair. Today’s events are insisting ever more loudly she deal with them, and Helena has no idea where to even start without falling apart. Myka stands at the back of the room looking conflicted to the point of helplessness. Then, like an angel with perfect timing, Jamila knocks on and comes through the door, a brown, greasy paper bag in one hand and a tray with a teapot and two cups in the other. Goodness knows how the woman managed to knock, Helena thinks, and then realizes what true miracle Jamila has wrought: a burger and fries of the kind Christina’s been crying for ten minutes ago, and-

“English breakfast tea,” Jamila announces, “the best you can get at Hong Kong Airport. Brewed to perfection _not_ by our esteemed colleagues from British Airways, but in the baggage staff kitchen.” She smirks. “It always pays to know who to ask,” she adds. “If you would be so kind?” She eyes her two full hands meaningfully, and both Helena and Myka surge forwards. Myka grasps the tray, Helena takes the paper bag; Jamila uses her now-free hands to make a table appear from the wall. “Enjoy,” she winks at them, and is gone. 

Helena deposits the bag on the table and sinks onto the free bed. Her hands are shaking, she notices when she runs them through her hair. Belatedly, she realizes that they were a little greasy from the burger bag she has handled. She purses her lips irritably, but by then Myka is in front of her with a cup of tea that smells heavenly indeed. 

When Helena takes the cup from Myka’s hands, Myka sits down next to her and pours herself a cup of her own. They sit in silence for a moment, and Myka can see that Helena’s hands are still shaking – she’s filled the cup only halfway, for that very reason. Helena might or might not be upset at a little bit of coddling, but Myka is past caring. Helena is beyond tired; a little bit of coddling is, Myka thinks, totally called for after an experience like the last twenty-eight hours. 

Myka gives them until they both have finished their cup of tea, then pours two more and asks Helena, “What can I do?”

Helena throws a bland smile her way and tries to deflect the offer with, “You’ve already done so much, darling,” but Myka isn’t having it. 

“Did you know,” she asks, “that you only ever call me darling when you’re evading the question?”

Helena drops her gaze. Myka can see the tips of her ears grow pink – that is new. Helena’s hands, and the cup of tea in them, sink to her lap. She takes a long, shuddering sigh. “I am too tired for this,” Helena says quietly. “Too tired to… to find the polite answer. To figure out what I should be saying.” Then she looks up at Myka with a look that is both defeated and defiant at the same time. “If ever there was a time where you could get me to talk about my feelings-” she does manage to inflect those words with an amount of disdain that totally belies her claim about being tired, “now would be it, I suppose.”

Myka shakes her head. “However tempting that might be,” she says and smiles a little, “it can wait, okay? Really, I’m only asking what I can do, for you, right now, to make things easier. I know you’re exhausted, and I’m not, and I just… I just want to do something that’ll help.”

Helena blinks. Her lips quirk, form beginnings of words, still again. “What you did earlier,” she says finally. “In the taxi.”

Myka tilts her head in surprise. “I… I didn’t _do_ anything as such,” she says. 

“You said ‘I’ve got you’,” Helena specifies. Her words are slow, her diction much less crisp than usual. 

And Myka realizes what those words must have meant for Helena, and what Helena wants from her now. “I did,” she says quietly, “and I still do.” She takes the teacup from Helena’s unresisting hands and puts it back on the table. The motion makes Helena sway much more than it should; another thing that drives home how tired Helena is.

With gentle and steady hands, Myka takes Helena’s boots off, tugs the jacket from her shoulders, helps her peel the jeans off her legs. Helena follows Myka’s low-voiced instructions without a word, without a moment’s hesitation, and is tucked in next to Christina in a matter of minutes, curled around her daughter with her back to the aisle. One of Helena’s hands finds its home under her cheek, the other trails to her neck as if on auto-pilot, and suddenly Helena’s eyes are wide and wild, and Myka remembers. 

“Hold on,” she says quickly, and finds the locket in one of the front pockets of Helena’s jeans. When she puts it back around Helena’s neck and soothes Helena’s hair back into place, Helena sighs and gives a small shudder. “Did that feel good or bad?” Myka asks at once. Maybe Artie does have a point? Should she worry? Then again, the locket has never exhibited any kind of negative effect on Helena - or has it?

While Myka’s thoughts whir around neutralizer and possibilities, Helena takes a few moments to answer. When it comes, her reply is sleep-slurred. “Good.”

“Good,” Myka says in a quiet voice, forgoing her theories in favor of concentrating on the woman she loves, and on how to make her as comfortable as she can. “I’ll go on doing it, then, okay?” 

She doesn’t get a reply, but she goes on running her fingers through Helena’s hair anyway. It’s not like it hasn’t been calling out to Myka for more than a year, after all. Myka is not quite sure when she first wanted to touch it – when an unknown woman with the shiniest black hair Myka had ever seen had squeezed herself past Myka in H.G. Wells’ house, or when the villainous, _female_ Helena G. Wells had held a Tesla to Pete’s throat, putting an incredibly sexy tinge on the words ‘I know all about it’. And now that Myka’s fingers have actually, intentionally touched Helena’s hair for the first time, she is not sure at all that she can stop anytime soon. 

At any rate, concentrating on Helena’s hair is much more appropriate than thinking about how soft her skin was when Myka helped her undress just now, even if it was just jacket and jeans. Hair it is, therefore.

The flight back is going to be at least twelve hours, and who knows when they’ll take off? Artie, Pete and Steve have to make arrangements first and that could take hours. Hours in which Myka can sit here, on the edge of the bed, and run her hand through Helena’s hair, maybe even graze her fingernails across Helena’s scalp ever so lightly…

The prospect is enormously pleasing. 

Myka takes a moment to toe her own boots off, to put on fuzzy socks (always in her overnight bag because her feet are always cold), and to ask Jamila’s help in quietly turning the unused bed into a sofa – Myka isn’t tired at all, and even if she were, there is no way she would sleep across the aisle in a bed of her own, even if the three of them on one bed would be a tight squeeze. Myka does not give one damn about that. Plus, part of her thinks conscientiously, she can only buckle in for take-off when the bed is in sofa configuration – she’s seen Jamila pull out the belt. She briefly wonders if she needs to wake Helena and Christina for take-off, and apparently Jamila can read minds – or at least the minds of first-timers, because the flight attendant shakes her head reassuringly and whispers, “not a problem; let’s let them sleep, the poor darlings.”

Then Myka is seated on the edge of the bed again, and her fingers find Helena’s hair once more. Helena exhales with a contented little noise and snuggles her head into Myka’s hand, and suddenly Myka finds it hard to contain her emotions. She wants to grin widely enough to make her cheeks hurt. She wants to whoop and crow with joy the way Pete does when the Browns happen to win a game. She wants to jump up and dance in the aisle, or barring that to at least wiggle her shoulders. And she wants to protect Helena and Christina – so much so that for the first time, she wouldn’t object to be called a Mama Bear for it. When Sykes had Christina pressed against him, she could have-

Myka grates her teeth and consciously moves her thoughts away from that for now. It's too fresh, too upsetting, and she doesn’t want to inadvertently tug at Helena’s hair or something. She pauses one moment, switches to Christina’s head to smooth a curl away from the kid’s face, then her fingers return to Helena as if on autopilot, and her heart swells as she looks at the two sleepers.

Helena and Christina are the people she loves. Helena, in particular, is the woman she loves. 

There is no chaos about this anymore, and the clarity that Myka has found in its stead has changed her outlook immensely. The fact that Helena has contacted a psychologist – Myka can see a way forward, can see actual movement on that way, and feels better than she has in weeks. And out of her clarity, another thought arises: she will do what she can to help that forward movement. The offer she made to Helena back then, of taking a sabbatical, leaving active Warehouse duty for a while – it still stands, and she doesn’t regret one word of it.

Yes, hunting for artifacts is something she excels at, but there’s a price to pay for that kind of job, and today, the price was far too high. And yes, Myka knows she’s good at this job and the Warehouse needs agents who are good at this job – but there are over three hundred million people in the US; she can’t be the only one who’s this good, there’s no way she is. Let someone else save the world, at least for a while. Let her have a quiet corner of it, with this woman and this child, and a bit of peace for them to find their footing.

Let her just run her fingers through Helena’s hair for a bit longer. 

At some point, Artie, Pete and Steve arrive and the plane takes off. At some point, the pilot extinguishes the ‘fasten your seatbelt’ signs, and Myka resumes her place on the edge of Helena’s and Christina’s bed. 

Helena is, thankfully, astoundingly, still asleep, her breaths low and even. Myka’s fingers trail through her hair, and Myka’s thoughts trail through Myka’s brain. 

A sabbatical. 

A year’s worth of reprieve, from deadly threats and dangerous artifacts, from exhilarating hunts and endless wonder. Myka has thought about it before, has wondered if it’d be worth it, has weighed the pros and cons – has made a list, even, not that she’s shown it to anyone. After today, though, she is definite. She wants it. She wants out, if only for a pre-defined time. She wants a chance to explore a relationship with Helena, to explore her friendship with Christina, to explore who the three of them can be for each other, without worrying about deadly threats and dangerous artifacts. 

As Myka’s fingers gently glide through Helena’s hair, she is certain that it is, indeed, not only worth it but necessary for this relationship, this friendship, to thrive. The fits and starts they’ve all been subjected to won’t allow Helena to heal or Christina to actually settle in, that’s all there is to it. 

But is it? 

Would Myka only be doing this for Helena? Is there anything in it for herself? It would be a sacrifice; the last two months have shown that clearly enough. Myka misses going on retrievals, and while she can apply some of her talents in her research, ‘some’ is not ‘all’, the way she does out in the field. And if she takes a sabbatical, ‘some’ will become even less, depending on what she starts doing with her time. 

Would she make this sacrifice, and if so, who would she be making it for? If dating a married man has taught her one thing, it is that sacrificing things only for the sake of the other person in the relationship, and not for yourself, is a surefire way to put too much strain on the relationship. In her mind, she can practically hear Tracy telling her the same thing, too. So what would be in it for Myka Bering if she did this?

She could pursue a master’s degree, although if Helena chooses the same – go to college somewhere – the thought of going to college together seems thoroughly, utterly weird. But if Helena decides to do something else, then… then Myka could. Something in the linguistics field, maybe, or in literature. Or something management-related – working in this close proximity to Artie has given Myka an appreciation for how a person’s management and leadership style influences workplace culture, and it’s fascinating. 

She… she could write. 

The thought hits her out of the blue. 

‘One day’ has always been the rider on _that_ particular idea. ‘One day’ and ‘lots of time’ and ‘lots of money’ and ‘no other obligations’. 

But there’s always been that notion, somewhere inside her, that idea that one day she’ll write something. It’d been downright uncanny when her mother had told her about her father’s manuscript – not that Myka is anywhere near having a manuscript of her own, but the mere idea that her father was pursuing the same notion had put a hold on it for Myka for quite some time. But the idea has made its return, lately, along with the ‘one day’ and the ‘lots of time’ and the ‘lots of money’ and the ‘no other obligations’.

Well, wouldn’t a sabbatical qualify as ‘lots of time’? And Myka does have some money put by that she can use, no matter how much Helena has stated that she is well able to support all three of them with her wealth. Myka knows that Helena could if she wanted; she just doesn’t want to be dependent on Helena that way. Going to college together aside, _that_ would be altogether _too_ weird; like some strange kind of… sugar momma relationship. Myka twists her lips in distaste. No, that would create more problems than it would solve. 

She cou- 

Christina screams. 

Myka is up on her feet in a fraction of a second, and in front of her, Helena shoots upright too. 

Christina screams, blood-curdling and primal, and there’s a knock on the door and worried voices from behind it.

Christina screams, and Helena is on her knees in front of her daughter, trying to talk to her, trying to cut through the fear and the panic, but Christina doesn’t react. She’s backed into the cabin wall, eyes wide open but unseeing, and something in Myka’s mind holds up a card: 

Night terror. 

“It’s a night terror,” she yells, loud enough to make herself heard over Christina’s voice and possibly through the door. “Helena, it’s a night terror,” she continues, loud and fast and urgent near Helena’s ear. She can see that Helena’s motions are becoming frantic; Helena needs the reassurance of knowing what’s going on. “Kids have those sometimes. She can’t hear you and you shouldn’t wake her up; just… let’s just make sure she doesn’t hurt herself, okay? Don’t restrict her movements too much, though; that might become part of it for her.”

She waits a moment with baited breath, then she sees Helena nod. Helena’s hands release their clutch on Christina’s shoulders and slide down her arms. One hand grabs Christina’s, the other comes up to gently stroke Christina’s tear-streaked face. 

After another ten seconds or so, and with a strangled kind of hiccup, Christina’s screams subside. She continues to keen, though, and to press her body into the wall, and Myka’s heart hurts seeing Helena fruitlessly try to comfort her. Then, after what seems like an eternity (two minutes and thirty-five seconds, Myka knows, but she also knows it’s been an eternity), Christina’s eyes drop shut and she sinks back down onto the bed, fully asleep again. Helena fusses over her, covers her with the blanket just so and wipes her hair from her wet face before turning to Myka. 

“You have… experienced this before?” Her voice is rough and her eyes are haunted, begging for further reassurance. 

Myka nods quickly. After all that’s happened, it’s not surprising that Christina should react this way, but the timing for Helena really couldn’t be worse. Myka knows she needs to reassure Helena; the woman looks one hair’s breadth away from flying to pieces. “One of the kids I babysat when I was in college had them a couple of times,” she explains, her words almost tumbling over themselves. “Some kids get them, others don’t. It’s different from a nightmare; nightmares you remember – night terrors you don’t. Christina might have had her eyes open, but she will not remember this at all when she wakes up.”

“And you’re certain one should not wake a child during it?” Helena asks. 

Myka is about to answer when, again, there’s a knock on the door, softer this time. With a quick apologetic grimace at Helena, she gets up and opens it a crack – Pete’s outside looking extremely worried. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks. 

“Christina had a night terror,” Myka explains. “It’s alright now, she’s calmed down again.”

Pete’s frown lingers. He’s plainly not familiar with the term, but he usually accepts Myka’s judgment and today is no exception. “Anything we can do?” he asks, and Myka realizes that behind him, Steve, Artie and Jamila are looking equally concerned. 

“No, it’s fine,” she says with an attempt at a smile. “Thanks for your concern – all of you,” she adds, addressing the assembly. “We’ll try and let her sleep some more, maybe catch some sleep ourselves.”

With a few mutterings of ‘alright’ and ‘good night’, they retreat and Myka shuts the door again. 

“Sorry about that,” she says. 

“Why on Earth would you be?” Helena asks with raised eyebrows and a small smile. “You didn’t make them come knocking.”

Myka huffs a laugh. “True,” she sighs and runs a hand through her hair. She stretches – she’s been sitting for a long time, and then crouching over the bed in an uncomfortable position; her muscles, joints and tendons are protesting. 

“Are you alright?” Helena asks. 

“Oh yeah,” Myka says quickly and sits down. Then she rolls her head a few times. “Just a bit tense,” she adds. 

“I’ll book us a massage in Univille,” Helena says in a no-argument voice. 

Not that Myka is in any way against the idea. “God yes please,” she moans. Then she laughs again. “Whoa,” she adds, “that came out weird.” For a moment, she thinks back to the kiss they shared in the taxi, to moans of a different kind that she has envisioned with Helena, but-

“Not at all,” Helena waves it away. “Would you mind telling me more about night terrors, though, please? I’m still not quite certain what they entail.”

Myka silently berates herself. “Of course,” she says and proceeds to explain about sleep cycles, possible causes, symptoms, and what a caregiver can do – which isn’t a lot. 

Helena seems personally affronted by that. “And you are certain that she will not remember this in the morning – or whatever time it is right now?”

Myka nods. “Positive.”

Helena clicks her tongue. “Bother.”

And as if that click has jump-started Myka’s brain, she realizes why Helena is so exasperated. “It’s difficult for you, isn’t it? To be unable to do anything about this?”

“Try ‘infuriating’,” Helena says with a huff. “Or ‘intolerable’.”

“Try ‘inalterable’,” Myka advises her. “Really, there is nothing you can do. Isaac’s parents always said it was worse for them than for him. I mean it was bad for me as his babysitter.” Which makes her remember something from back then, and she leans forward and checks the mattress and blanket. “Dry,” she adds, “that’s good. Night terrors can come with bed wetting sometimes, and it doesn’t matter how old the child is or how long they’ve been toilet trained. It just happens. No judgment. Especially not when said kid just had a string of stomach bugs. At least we can be pretty sure that _that’s_ over for now.”

Helena’s eyebrows are at her hairline, but they’re descending as Myka speaks. “Righty-ho,” she sighs. Then she gives Myka a small smile. “I appreciate that you have experience in this matter,” she says. “I can only imagine how difficult it must be for a caregiver who doesn’t have someone with this expertise.”

Myka huffs a laugh through her nose. “That would’ve been me the first time Isaac had one. His parents hadn’t told me about them because he hadn’t had them in a while, so they thought it was over.” She shakes her head at them and at her nineteen-year old self. Then she looks more closely at Helena, at how hunched her shoulders still are, how she runs her hands over and over the blanket fabric. “How are you holding up?” she asks. 

Helena sighs again, and rolls her eyes, and looks aside. 

“Helena, please,” Myka says. “Please, I… I mean I get that emotions are difficult for you to talk about, but… the only thing I want to know is if you… I don’t know, if you’re barely holding it together, or if you’re only holding it together for Christina’s sake, or if it’s not too difficult holding it together – you know, that kind of thing.” Then she adds, “And if there’s something I can do.”

Helena smiles, suddenly, tersely, and her reply comes so fast Myka is sure Helena hasn’t thought about what she’s going to say and if it’s a good idea to say it. “I seem to remember you stroking my hair,” is what she says, and her expression is unexpectedly unguarded. 

Myka blushes fiercely. “I did,” she says with a little upward tilt of her chin. She’s not going to apologize for liking it, or for doing it as long as she has.

“It felt…” Helena bites her lip, then gives herself a little shake, and finishes, “it felt wonderful. And before that,” she adds, with the hang-dog look of someone who’s decided to go all in despite any misgivings, “when you… it sounds so mundane now that I think of it, but when you said ‘I’ve got you’, it… it gave me license to let go. To stop worrying and stop thinking, because you had it all covered and I didn’t need to concern myself with anything.” She runs a hand through her hair, and now that Myka knows how that feels, she wants to do the same, again, and again, and again. She even leans forward slightly, this close to raising her hand to join Helena’s, but then catches herself, because Helena is going on. “Which is not a stance that I typically take, so I blame my fatigue and-”

“But why blame anything?” Myka bursts out. “Helena, that’s part of what a relationship is – when you’re tired, I take care of things and vice versa. A partnership, you know?” And then she remembers her very first relationship, and the things she learned and had to unlearn back then. She leans back, but reaches out a hand, palm open. A smile grows on her face when, almost at once, certainly once again too fast for conscious thought, Helena’s hand slips into it. “Hey, here’s something I learned. If… if you already know this, just stop me, okay? I’m not assuming you don’t know, I just want to make sure you’re aware, you know?”

Helena nods, head tilted. 

“So, um… we learn about relationships mostly from the people around us,” Myka says. “Like, your parents, typically, if both of them are still alive. That’s the first relationship you know, and usually the one you can watch most closely. We learn from them what it means to be married – or divorced, or whatever relationship they’re in, really. But we don’t see everything that goes on, we don’t know their relationship like they do, so what we’re learning from them, even if they’re in the best kind of marriage, will always be a little skewed. With me so far?”

Helena nods again. “What you say makes sense,” she says, “although I am not at all certain of the point you’re making.”

“Patience, Wells,” Myka says with a quick grin. Then she goes on, “When you start a relationship of your own, the learning curve is steep, no matter how good of an example you had in your parents, or in other couples around you. Because you’re a different person than they are, and so is your partner, and you gotta figure out how to be partners together. For me, with my parents, I knew a lot of what I _didn’t_ want in a relationship, but I had no idea of what I _did_ want, or how to make that happen. I just knew how my parents interacted in certain situations, and how it inevitably led to fights, or to my mom being silently hurt, or to my dad lashing out at her, us, everyone. I knew I didn’t want my partner to walk all over me, but I’d never had an example to learn _how_ to not let someone walk all over you, you know what I mean?”

“Yes…” Helena says slowly. “Still not quite sure of-”

“You know, for someone as intelligent as you are, that’s quite the admission,” Myka deadpans. Helena gives her a mock glare that, suddenly, dissolves into a brilliant smile. 

“I think I have an inkling,” Helena says. 

“Care to share?”

Helena blinks at the colloquialism – she has not come across this one before. “If you’re asking me if I’m willing to voice my theory,” she says, “then yes. I am.” And speaking - and thinking - about this is infinitely easier than thinking - or speaking - about what happened in that cellar, or being helpless to stop her daughter screaming in terror.

“Shoot, then,” Myka says, leaning back on one arm – the other hand is still securely curled around Helena’s. 

“I have very little experience when it comes to relationships,” Helena says. “Flirtations, trysts, yes, I had a plethora of those, but true relationships, not a one.”

Myka tilts her head forwards. “Not e-” She immediately stops herself and blushes. “I’m sorry,” she says softly, “I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”

“Not even with Christina’s father,” Helena completes the sentence quietly. “No offense taken, my love. I understand the curiosity. And if you’ll allow the digression, I _would_ like to tell you about him.” It is past time, after all, and probably an explanation for a good many things.

Myka’s only answer is a nod. 

Helena leans back, firmly closes the door on any thoughts of Sykes and chess locks, runs her hand through her hair once more, and begins. “We met when I was twenty-three. He was three years older than me, and tried to make much of it.” Helena gives a short, quite bitter laugh. “Back then, I was enamored – not yet infatuated, but that wasn’t too long in coming. I thought myself in quite the romance, with him courting me in secret as he did. The reason he gave was that his parents would not approve; today I have my doubts of that claim,” she says darkly. “His name was Morton Loughead – I will admit to a bit of pettiness when it came to naming the antagonists Charles and I thought up,” she adds with a small toss of her head. The thought of him still rankles, after all this time, and to call the Morlocks and Doctor Moreau after him was immensely satisfying. “I thought that was truly in love with him,” she continues. “When he kissed me, I swooned.” Helena shakes her head, annoyed with her younger self. “It is truly sad, thinking back on it now, how deeply I had fallen for him. 

“He was not, in hindsight, my first love – that had been Henrietta, a girl who moved in close to us when I was fifteen. Only at the time, I did not realize… I had no concept of romantic love outside of heteronormativity, as you so aptly call it. I simply thought she and I were the best of friends. And when we kissed…” she sighs with the memory; not happily reminiscing, but filled with regret and sadness for what could have been, had times been different. “It was an attempt to figure out how it would feel to be kissed,” she says softly. “We both liked it enormously – oh, we were so innocent, the two of us. I remember thinking that I understood, now, the heroines in romance novels. I remember being excited for the first man to kiss me, remember imagining how it would be even better, because surely being kissed by a man _must_ be better, must be more right than being kissed by a woman. 

“And yet when Henrietta and I kissed, a fervor grew in me, in both of us, that led us to deepen our kisses, to broaden our explorations – yes, technically I was a virgin when Morton wooed me,” she can admit this easily; the apparent virtue or value of virginity has never been important to her, not when the aforementioned explorations, when sex as a whole was so immensely enjoyable. “In that I had not lain with a man, that is. I certainly was no longer innocent when it came to the pleasures of the flesh. And yet,” she says again, “Henrietta and I never thought of ourselves that way. We had an idea that what we enjoyed, and the readiness with which we enjoyed it, was illicit – no novel that we’d ever read had spoken of it, to begin with. But we never would have imagined the direness of what we were doing.” She swallows, loath to remember what inevitably had come next. “Until we were caught.”

Myka makes an involuntary motion, accompanied by a small sound of compassion. “Oh, Helena,” she says.

Helena inhales sharply and grimaces. “I see you get the idea of what happened next,” she says matter-of-factly. “Henrietta folded like a wet newspaper; I myself was not quite mature enough, not quite self-assured enough to maintain that I had been doing a thing that had been good, that had been right. I believed my parents when they insisted it had been a sin; my promise to them that it would not happen again was given in good faith. I will reiterate,” she adds dryly, “that I was barely seventeen at that time.” She heaves a sigh and tilts her head back slightly. “So when Morton started wooing me, and I felt a similar stirring for him as I had for Henrietta, I was nervous and reassured at the same time – nervous of wrongdoing, but reassured that what was to come would be something I would like. Only this time, it would be correct – with a man, as nature had intended.” She gives a slight scoff. “I should have…” her voice peters off, and she shrugs. “No, I suppose I could not have seen it coming, in all fairness. We all trust until we learn better, and I had not yet learned that lesson – but I was about to. 

“It was two days after my twenty-fourth birthday that I realized I was late.” Helena waits a moment to see if Myka understands the euphemism. To judge by the widening of her eyes, she does. Helena sighs again, and tries to smile. In truth, it is more of a grimace than a smile, and Myka’s fingers squeeze hers tightly. Helena returns the gesture and continues, “I told him a month later, when I was certain. By then the morning sickness alone was undeniable, but I had been able to keep my family from noticing. We’ve always been very private, which came to my aid. However, when I told Morton,” she imbues the name with all the venom she still, after all these years, feels for him, “I might have as well told the whole of London. He claimed that _I_ had seduced _him_ , that he had severe misgivings I had still been a girl of virtue when we met, that anything that had happened had been at my instigation, and that this was the lamentable, but certainly not unexpected outcome and, in so many words, my own fault and nothing to do with him.”

“Fuck him,” Myka mutters darkly, and it startles a laugh – a true, full laugh – from Helena. 

“Indeed,” she says dryly, “that was the root of the problem.”

Myka’s eyes grow wild. “Ohmygosh,” she says immediately, almost stumbling over the words, “that’s not what I-”

“I know, love,” Helena tries to reassure her, with yet another squeeze to their clasped hands. “I know. I do share the sentiment, and I apologize for making a joke of it. Shall I continue my account?”

Like before, Myka nods without a word. 

“My parents did not disown me,” Helena remembers with a somber mien, “but living under their roof was, from then on, not… agreeable. For anyone within the family; I believe Charles married Jane mostly to have an excuse to move out,” she adds. “He did offer to bring me into his household, and I will forever be grateful to him for it.”

Myka is frowning. “Hold on, though,” she says. “Did this Morton guy ever… face consequences for what he did?”

Helena cannot help but huff another bitter laugh. “Of course not,” she mutters. “I believe he married two years later; my mother sent me the announcement in the mail. I have not the slightest clue why she thought I might be interested, or whatever else her motivation might have been.” 

“Does… does Christina know any of this?” Myka asks hesitantly. 

Helena lowers her gaze. “No,” she sighs, “and frankly, I have no idea how to tell her. All she knows is that her father left before she was born, and that I preferred it that way because he was a good-for-nothing Neanderthal.”

Myka yips a laugh, then clamps her free hand over her mouth. “That’s _not_ what you told her.”

“Of course it is,” Helena says with dignity and emphasis. 

When Myka drops her hand, Helena can see that she is biting her lip, probably to retain another laugh. “That’s… that’s something,” Myka says finally, and a veritable giggle rides on it. 

“Quite,” Helena agrees, glad that it is a giggle and not disapproval. “So, to return to my theory at long last, not only did I not have a large sample size to draw my relationship experiences and conclusions from, but my first experience as a… an involved party, so to speak, was abysmal. If we can count what there was between Morton and me as a relationship,” she adds darkly. “It seems that Henrietta and I would count more towards that, in hindsight, but then that was more of a… friends with benefits situation, I believe the expression is?” She waits for Myka’s confirming nod, then goes on, “At any rate, the idea that the two involved parties, to stay with the expression, could be equal partners, as you suggested, is one that I need to familiarize myself with. My parents…” she shakes her head. “Theirs was a stable marriage, mostly because they each had their own, quite separate domain. If they shared burdens with each other, it was certainly pas devant les enfants.” Not in front of the children – Helena knows Myka knows enough French to understand the expression even if it might have fallen out of use. Accordingly, Myka nods in confirmation again, and Helena continues, “And while I know that Caturanga was happily married to Sita, they both were too private to grant me any insights into their marriage secrets.”

Myka hums her understanding. “Which brings us back to what I said back in the car on our drive back from the regents’ meeting: negotiations.”

Helena tilts her head back slightly, remembering that fateful day. In some ways, a lot has happened since then – in other ways, she feels as though things have barely progressed since the very conversation Myka is referencing. “Negotiations which I am woefully badly equipped for,” she says. 

“Which is why it’s good that we’re not on opposite sides of the table,” Myka says. “They’re not that kind of negotiation. It’s more like…” she casts around and lands on, “a business merger? Maybe? Like, we both have our ways of doing things, like companies have their regulations and processes and culture, and now we talk about how we want to do things going forward.”

Helena, whose eyebrows had risen at the words ‘business merger’, finds herself nodding. She also finds herself yawning. “Not a comment on your simile,” she is quick to reassure Myka, “simply a consequence of a continued lack of sleep. I do like your idea; however, I would ask we postpone this conference to a later date.”

“My people will call your people?” Myka asks with a grin.

“And coordinate calendars,” Helena nods soberly. Myka chuckles. When Helena straightens, her shoulders crackle, and she decides to follow Myka’s example to rise and stretch. 

One consequence of this, considering that she is not wearing any trousers, is that Myka watches her with poorly disguised attraction – which is a consequence to cherish, of course, and Helena does. Another consequence, though, is that now her bladder demands attention – or relief, rather. 

“Did you mention that there was a bathroom close by?”

Myka nods and stands immediately. “Through there,” she points at the back door. “Toiletries are in the cupboard on the left if you also want to wash your face or brush your teeth, that kind of thing.” 

“This plane seems to have everything,” Helena smiles, “I shouldn’t wonder if they could accommodate a person giving birth.”

“There are probably regulations for that kind of thing,” Myka says. 

Helena cannot pass by _that_ opening. She gasps, hands to her chest. “You mean to say you do not _know?_ ” she demands, as if the idea upended her view of Myka entirely. 

Myka simply levels a glare at her, stems her fists into her hips, and juts her chin towards the bathroom. “Get going, Wells, or I might just decide I need to use the bathroom myself and make you wait for half an hour.”

Helena beats a quick retreat after that. 

Myka is still there when she returns, and she cherishes that experience, too. 

“I’ll go and get ready for bed, too,” Myka says and gets up. “I might as well; it’s basically the middle of the night anyway, in terms of Mountain Daylight.” It does not take her half an hour; ten minutes later she is back in the cabin, clear of make-up and dressed in a t-shirt and soft pants – and fuzzy socks, still. “How do you want to do this?” she asks Helena, nodding at the one bed that Christina is now sprawled across and at the couch that used to be a bed before Helena fell asleep. “We can put this one down and sleep on it, or you can crawl in with Christina and I’ll be over here on my own.” She grins. “Or we can all bunk together, nice and cozy. Although with how spread out the kid is right now, I’m not sure we’ll all fit.”

“I’ll move her over,” Helena says, “if you think we’ll all fit.” She has misgivings as to that, but the thought of having Myka physically that far away does not appeal, nor does the thought of herself being across the aisle from Christina. 

“I think we will if we spoon,” Myka says. “I mean lay front to back, like two spoons in a drawer. You know?” Then she blushes. “I mean if… if you… if that is okay with you.”

Helena thinks about this for a moment. “I am… not certain,” she says finally. “You need to know, Myka, that some of my nightmares can be…” her mouth twists in distaste, “violent. Christina has complained before, about me struggling, or even lashing out.” She swallows. There is another issue that bothers her, but she would rather not talk about that unless it absolutely cannot be helped. “I would hate to hit you,” she finishes.

“Noted,” Myka says, and as easy as that, she is moving towards the bed that Christina is occupying. “Do you want to be between her and me or on the outside?” she asks, and finally Helena realizes that they are indeed proceeding with this endeavor, and she better make good on her announcement to move Christina. 

“Center, please,” Helena says immediately, lifting the blanket and gently reining in Christina’s limbs. 

A few minutes later, she is ensconced between Christina and Myka, two comforting warmths at her front and her back. ‘Spooning’ is indeed an apt descriptor for the way they are stacked together, closer than a pile of puppies. The nearness is, much more than sharing a bed with Christina alone, prodding one of Helena’s more conscious fears, but tired as she is, she lets it lie, hoping against hope that it will not come to pass, not this night.


	17. Chapter 17

Helena wakes to a muted roar in her ears, to hot and cold sweat covering her body, and to a weight pinning down her arms. In her disorientation, her only thought is to _get away_.

She groans and flails and struggles, and the weight disappears, but she is still ominously hot, and her movements are still restricted, so she struggles on, to disentangle herself from whatever is binding her, and to dispel the drowsiness that slows her thoughts.

A sound cuts through the roar, resolves itself into something intelligible. A voice. “-alright, Helena, it’s alright, you’re alright.” Myka. 

“Myka,” Helena gasps, and finally, her eyes obey her and open. The room she is in is round, alien, and the noise is still all around her. Then, as if revealed by a curtain, everything suddenly makes sense: plane. She is still on a plane, and this particular plane has beds, and she is lying in one, tangled in its sheets. She notices that her hands are clenched around those sheets, and she attempts to loosen them. 

“Are you okay?” Myka asks, head tilted solicitously. 

A shudder crosses Helena’s face like a summer squall. In all honesty, the answer is no, but that would not be the proper thing to say. So she inhales and calls up a smile and says, “As much as can be.”

“You don’t have to say that, you know,” Myka says quietly. “I can see you’re shaking.”

“Well, if you can see that, why did you ask?” It comes out more waspishly than Myka’s concern deserves, and it is most certainly not the proper thing to say, but Helena is still unsettled from how she has woken up, from how she has spent the last day, from how the fear, with all its different flavors, still runs bone-deep.

“Hey,” is Myka’s soft reply. She reaches out with one arm, then hesitates. “I would like to hug you,” she says, “would that be okay?”

Oh, to simply sink into her embrace and shove all the cares of the world aside once more. But how long until that is all Helena can do when faced with the world’s cares? She has always been self-sufficient, and that has always been a source of pride. A self-sufficient woman does not sink into her lover’s arms, does not wait for said lover to solve the world’s cares in her stead. Therefore, she sits up straighter and shakes her head. “No, thank you,” she says, wrapping poise around her like a robe.

Myka’s jaw goes slack – Helena is certain that but for Myka’s own poise, the other woman’s mouth would have dropped open. Then she blinks and, likewise, sits up straight. “Alright,” she says, with a gaze that plainly announces that there is more she is going to say about the matter at a later point. 

“Where is Christina?” Helena asks, eager to change the topic. 

Myka nods her head towards the door behind them. “Up front with Pete, Steve and Artie. Probably watching How To Train Your Dragon for the twenty-fourth time, would be my bet.”

Helena nods and pulls her poise more closely around her before announcing she will use the bathroom. While she rises to find her clothes, Myka readily frees the way for her. 

Even though her skin itches with a day’s worth of cold sweat and dirt, Helena does not so much as look at the small shower stall. She quickly strips and washes herself down with a washcloth, then her eyes fall on a small stack of clothes – a t-shirt and some underwear, by the looks of it neither hers nor Myka’s. Well, it cannot be helped - she will have to ask.

“Myka?” she calls through the closed door. She hears rustling noises – it is incredible how much better the sound insulation is on this plane than on the commercial planes she has been on before.

Then, “Yeah?” Myka answers.

“There are a few items of clothing in here that I cannot place.” But that she longs to put on instead of yesterday’s underthings. 

“Oh!” She can hear the smile in Myka’s voice when Myka goes on, “That’s courtesy of Jamila. She saw that you did not have a bag with you when we came on board, so she went out and bought some stuff for you and Christina. Even had it washed and dried while we waited for Artie, Steve and Pete to arrive.”

Helena’s mouth drops open, poise forgotten. “That is…”

“Above and beyond the call of duty,” Myka completes the sentence, “I know. She’s amazing. I mean, Christ, she apologized that she had to guess sizes!”

Helena swallows dryly. She did bring a bag for Christina and herself, but it has been – probably still is – on Sykes’ plane, wherever _that_ is. Her face in the mirror blurs – she is welling up at the thought that there are people in this world who will offer such kindness to strangers. Customers, a more acerbic part of her mind insists, but she shakes her head clear of the thought. Above and beyond, as Myka has said. Yes, you will provide food and beverages for a customer, but to leave the plane for genuine, well-brewed tea and a greasy burger? To buy _and wash_ a change of clothing for them?

Helena’s hands curl around the countertop’s edge, inches away from the little stack of garments, as she fights for composure. This is not the first act of kindness from a stranger that she has encountered, not even recently; why should this one affect her so? Exhaustion, part of her mind murmurs, and it sounds plausible – Helena has been this physically tired before (despite the luxury of, in total, six hours of sleep), and she knows how much fatigue can color events and a person’s reaction to them. And yet it is not only sleep deprivation she feels. Her exhaustion runs deep, to her bones, to her core. 

She raises her eyes to her reflection in the mirror – her face is still smooth, but there are dark shadows under her eyes, and the expression in them _is_ one of profound weariness. Helena huffs a little laugh. By rights, she thinks, she should look old, gray and wrinkled, should look all of her one-hundred and forty-six years. Today she feels every single one of them, and the fact that her reflection does not reflect that sits ill with her for once. 

There is a soft knock on the door. “Are you okay?” Myka’s question is soft as well. Looking at the mirror as Helena is, she can _see_ her eyes fill with tears. 

Again, it exasperates her; however, she _has_ snapped at Myka once already. With an effort, therefore, she bites back another curt reply, and repeats her earlier answer in a more conciliatory tone, “As much as can be.”

“If there’s anything you need…” Myka leaves the offer open. When Helena does not answer (because she cannot, because Myka’s offer has only heightened her need to shed tears), a rustling indicates Myka’s retreat from the door.

If there is anything Helena needs, it is time, she thinks. Time to find her feet, time to, as Myka puts it, figure things out. Her thoughts land briefly on the email she wrote only a few days ago, and she winces. Another person who will – might, she corrects herself – add their own appointments, take up more of her time. She cannot find it within herself to look forward to whatever will come from that email – but Myka did kiss her for the simple act of having written it, so at least one favorable thing has already come from it, in a manner of speaking. 

Time, then. And Helena wishes for peace, as well – or at least freedom from disturbances and threats and more and harsher things to worry about than the state of her emotions.

Helena looks back at her reflection and finds that her face, now, at least shows the bitterness of the last twenty-four hours, or however long it has been – she does not have Myka’s enviable sense of time. 

It is not a favorable look, but it is honest, and Helena is beginning to appreciate honesty even if she still fears its sharpness. It is a weapon, more likely to hurt its wielder or expose them to danger or ridicule or worse than it is to profit them. Myka has claimed (and repeatedly maintained) that talking about things, as she calls it, is commonplace these days; that is indeed the basis of many kinds of therapy and thus something Helena can and should familiarize herself with. Whereas to Helena, granting someone this kind of access to her emotions is an invitation for them to hurt her. Morton was the first, but by far not the last. Not that Helena has ever let herself be led like that again, but people have found other ways to hurt her, to deny her, to curb her freedoms. 

Myka has not. 

The thought arrives in a clarity that is almost blinding, and for a moment, Helena is confused not to see a lightbulb appear over her head, as they do for the animated characters that Christina loves so much. 

Myka has not. 

Myka knows more of Helena than anyone in this time or in the past, and Myka has never once held her knowledge over Helena. 

Helena exhales slowly, shaken by the enormity of her insight. 

A hypothesis, then – projected from this past experience into future behavior: _if she opens up more to Myka, Myka will continue to be responsible with that knowledge._ More: _Myka, with her meticulous perceptive abilities and her analytical mind might provide insights and, thus, solutions that have so far eluded Helena._

Observation: Helena is emotionally exhausted and lacks the expertise to overcome this exhaustion on her own. (Helena snorts softly, irritated at her own shortcomings, but this is what the scientific method calls for. This is honesty, clarity, without which no hypothesis can ever be tested correctly.)  
Observation: Myka has stated that society approaches emotional instability differently than English Victorians used to. Side note: Helena does not know the truth nor the scope of this. Side note #2: Helena trusts Myka implicitly in many other things, and knows that Myka has never knowingly told her an untruth. Side note #1 is probably pointless.  
Observation: Myka is not prone to change her behaviors without clear and pronounced impetus. Myka has, in fact, _not_ changed her behavior towards Helena _despite_ clear and pronounced impetus, as exemplified in the regents meeting and its aftermath.  
Possible risk: among the further knowledge Myka will gain thusly, there might be something that might prompt her to change her behavior. Further risk: Helena herself does not fully understand the things she would be opening up about – if she presents them improperly, the probability for risk #1 might rise. 

The familiarity of framing a problem analytically calms Helena down to the point where she detaches her hands from the countertop and reaches for the new clothes to start dressing. The test set-up for proving or disproving her hypothesis is simple enough: open up to Myka. There are countless things she can tell her.

She dresses quickly, efficiently, starts to brush her teeth, feeling lighter than she has in months.

Observation: (the toothbrush stops mid-motion) When she opens up to Myka in physical terms – an embrace, the acceptance of a touch – it soothes at least one aspect of Helena’s exhaustion. 

Helena stares at herself in the mirror. Can it be this easy?

She goes through her memories of these occasions, and concludes that, yes, there seems to be a causal effect at work. There definitely is correlation. The toothbrush slowly starts to move again. 

Another hypothesis to test. 

The problem is, however, that the test subject… is Helena herself. And while she never once hesitated to step into her time machine to see if it worked, the idea of testing this particular pair of hypotheses makes her blood run cold.

Outside in the cabin-slash-bedroom, Myka drums her fingers impatiently. Helena has sent Myka away once – so she can’t very well go and ask _again_ if everything’s alright. The thing is, she _knows_ that Helena is not alright, and she keeps reminding herself that she’s determined to not let Helena evade the conversation. But freshening up after sleeping on a plane, however nice the plane is with its beds and its space and its cabin pressure that’s lower than Denver, is basic creature comfort, _especially_ with a nice bathroom like this plane has. 

So Myka waits, in this nice plane with its space and its beds and its cabin pressure that’s lower than Denver. She busies herself with putting away the bedding and converting the bed Helena has vacated back into its sofa configuration; she is reasonably sure that any sleeping that could have been had _has_ been had. She puts her head through the door to check up on Christina and the guys (all quiet in front of that large TV screen) and to catch Jamila’s eye – she is reasonably sure that another cup of tea will help Helena’s disposition.

Jamila serves the tea faster than Helena is out of the bathroom. Myka, who two hours ago helped put Christina in a t-shirt, undies and socks that Jamila got for the kid, thanks her again, much more profusely than a simple pot of tea warrants, and Jamila apologizes in advance for it not holding up to the earlier one, what with altitude and boiling points and the way people taste things when they’re more than six miles in the air, sub-Denver altitude cabin pressure or no.

“Some breakfast for you too, now?” Jamila suggests, and Myka, whose stomach growls at the idea of food, nods immediately. Christina has already had her breakfast, because unless she’s sick, the kid basically wakes up hungry (if she didn’t know better, Myka would think Christina got that from Pete), but Myka has always needed a bit of run-up to stomach food in the morning. She isn’t sure which side of the fence Helena falls down on, but she figures having food ready just in case won’t go amiss – at least yogurt and granola (and she knows Helena eats those) can’t grow cold.

Helena, when she does step back into the cabin, looks hesitant and a little unnerved. She approaches Myka with her hands clasped tightly together, and her eyes light up when she sees tea and food – whether she’s hungry or she’s happy about the opportunity to postpone a conversation, Myka doesn’t know. It might be both.

Myka tries very hard not to make Helena feel rushed. She vividly remembers the morning after Egypt – hard though it is to believe that it’s barely been a month since then – and how Helena curbed her impatience to let Myka eat breakfast. So she refrains from fidgeting, from clearing away things Helena has finished with, from meaningful looks – from all of it. Creature comforts include a full stomach, definitely. And they include coming to a difficult conversation – and they both seem to know that this conversation is coming – at your own pace and on your own terms.

So Myka sits and waits a little more and tries very hard. Even when Helena puts her spoon down and pushes her plate away, Myka doesn’t start talking. It’s not like they’re pressed for time; the flight will take at least another ninety minutes, and Christina and Pete in front of a TV are like old, put-together Lego: a combination you have to forcibly pry apart. 

“I appreciate your patience,” Helena says as if she can read Myka’s mind. “I know it cannot be easy.”

Myka grins at her, unabashedly happy all of a sudden, that Helena would so readily acknowledge this. “Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “I haven’t started tugging at my hair, and all my pants seams are still intact.” Those are the things she fiddles most with when she’s impatient, and Helena knows it.

Helena replies to Myka’s grin with a smile of her own, and it is as shaky and nervous as her expression coming from the bathroom has been. She takes a deep breath and exhales it with a sigh. “I… have a proposal for you,” she says.

Myka’s eyebrows shoot up. “A proposal,” she repeats, unsure what to make of it. 

Helena nods. “There are two hypotheses I would like to test. For that, I will need your assistance.”

Myka hesitates. That wasn’t the first thought her mind jumped to on hearing the word ‘proposal’, but that is totally not Helena’s fault. “Oh…kay?” she says slowly. “What hypotheses are these?”

Now it’s Helena who stops before replying. “One I can’t tell you about without compromising the test setup,” she finally says, and now Myka has to bite her lip to keep from grinning again – this sure is a very Helena approach to things. Helena’s words have made her almost insatiably curious, though. “The other one does not require secrecy. Being physically close to you… lightens my burden, if you will. It helps me.”

“And you want to know why?” Myka asks. She can help Helena with that; she’s followed the scientific discourse about oxytocin closely over the past few years, wondering how many of her own issues with bonding and trusting and letting go stemmed from the fact that her parents weren’t cuddlers.

Helena shakes her head, though. “I merely want, at first anyway, to find out to which degree, and with which dependability. The practical applications, if you will,” she adds with a self-deprecating smile. 

The smile is small – Helena herself is small, with her shoulders hunched and the way she’s sitting half on the couch, half off it. And yet, Myka thinks, and yet she’s the one with the proposal; she is the one putting forth an idea for what to do next. 

It makes Myka’s heart sing. “If you-” it comes out croakily, and she clears her throat and starts again, “If you want to test that one right away, my offer-slash-question about hugging still stands.”

A somewhat stronger smile flits across Helena’s face. “You don’t even know about the first hypothesis’ test setup yet,” she says, “are you sure?”

“Can you hug me and tell me at the same time?” Myka quips back and opens her arms. 

Helena hesitates, and to look at her, it seems more than simple misgivings. Her jaw is tight and her eyes are troubled. “There is something you must know before we start,” she says, “else it will not work as intended.”

Myka’s arms sink down a little bit, but she doesn’t drop them completely. “Yeah?”

Helena closes her eyes and says, very quickly, “Sometimes being embraced reminds me of the bronze.” She takes another deep breath and continues at a more normal pace, “Not always, and I do not know why it does, nor why it only reminds me of it at certain times but not at others, but when it does happen, it is… quite excruciating.”

Myka’s eyes that had grown round at Helena’s initial words now narrow a little when something becomes a little clearer. “Is… is that what happened this morning?” she asks softly. 

Helena weighs her head. “Possibly,” she says. “Yes, I felt a restriction and yes, it made me deeply uncomfortable. But I knew I wasn’t reliving my time in the bronze; that was cold, this was not. In fact I was almost too warm. But I think the principle, the cause of my discomfort, might have been similar.”

Myka nods along to Helena’s words. “I think I understand,” she says. “I, um… I could… if I moved my hands while we hug, do you think that would work? Do you think it would confirm that you’re not in the bronze?”

This time, the smile that appears on Helena’s face is… brave. Determined. “Only one way to find out,” she says, and very consciously moves into Myka’s arms. Myka can feel the coiled tenseness of her muscles and respects this step for what it is. She takes great care to close her arms slowly and not all the way, low on Helena’s back instead of around her shoulders. As soon as her hands touch Helena, she starts moving them in small circles. 

“How’s this so far?” she asks apprehensively. 

“Inconclusive as of yet,” Helena replies against her shoulder. “As in, I do not feel a relaxing effect, but then I am too concentrated on the potential onset of negative side effects to make relaxation likely.”

Myka chuckles. “Yeah, I can see how that would make things difficult,” she says. “Hey, I have an idea – let’s try this.” She leans a little closer to Helena’s ear and says, “Helena, I’ve got you.” Immediately, a shudder runs through the woman in her arms, and Myka pulls back slightly. “Good or bad?”

“In…conclusive,” Helena gasps, and Myka has to fight not to tighten her arms around her. Helena is shivering – no, she is _crying_.

“What should I do?” Myka asks. “Helena, this is your call. If you want me to let go, I will; if you want me to keep hugging you, I’ll do that too.” There is hardly anything that is more important to her for Helena to understand – this is why she asked for consent for a hug earlier, this is why she will keep on asking in the foreseeable future: she wants Helena to recognize her agency, in every step of this way.

“S-stay, please.” 

“Okay,” Myka replies, “okay.” She continues to rub little circles with her hands, keeping her arms in motion to remind Helena that this is an embrace, not the chill immobility of the bronze. She doesn’t say another word; there is no point in asking Helena why she’s crying – Myka has a pretty good idea, and anyway, the way Helena’s sobs are shaking her, there’s no way she’d be able to articulate anything right now. “Would it help you if I said things like ‘it’s alright’, stuff like that?” There is what might be a nod at her shoulder, so she proceeds to do so, telling Helena that it is alright, that it is okay to cry, that she can take her time, that Myka is here, that she’s got Helena. To her, these are dangerously close to platitudes, but maybe Helena needs to hear them – maybe Helena has never heard them before. Myka is pretty sure that the sentiment behind them, the concept that Helena can just let go of control for a moment, is a new idea to Helena, one that she might be, hopefully, beginning to understand – maybe even through this very hug.

 _No pressure_ , Myka thinks dryly to herself, and puts this topic on her ever-growing list of ‘things to talk about later’. 

Later, in this case, is about ten minutes away. Helena sniffs through the last of her tears, then straightens up. “Well,” she says, casting around for a tissue until Myka hands her one from her carry-on bag, “I used to believe that crying served no purpose, thus I always begrudged myself any tears - however, it does seem to relieve one’s burden. I would never have thought it, but my mother seems to have been right.” She blows her nose daintily and Myka bites back another smile. 

“You feel a bit better?” she asks instead. 

Helena nods. “It is very likely,” she says, “that your presence is what made the difference.” She gives Myka a smile, and that gives Myka license to no longer suppress hers. “And while I would enjoy pursuing this hypothesis further,” she continues with a hint of a twinkle in her eyes, “there is something else I would like to address.” She sits up straighter, and her smile fades into a determined expression. “Those negotiations you spoke of, regarding relationships,” she says. “Where do we start?”

Myka blinks, momentarily caught off-guard. Then her smile, which had faded along with Helena’s, bursts forth again. “We’re doing this, then?” she asks, trying to win a little time to order her thoughts. She hadn’t expected this, but then again, with Helena you could always expect the unexpected. “Well,” she hedges, drawing out the word as she tries to figure out where to start. Then she nods and says, “I guess the first thing to make sure of is if we’re both committed to this. I mean, I’m pretty sure we are, but we’ve never actually sat down and flat-out said it, so I guess now’s a good time.”

Helena smiles and nods as well - not quite as exuberant as Myka, but no longer as restrained as earlier either. “You are right – let’s not leave room for misunderstandings or assumptions,” she says. “Therefore, in the interest of mutual assuredness: yes, I am committed to this relationship.” Her hand twitches towards Myka’s, but doesn’t reach out. 

Myka offers her hand, palm up and halfway towards Helena, and again Helena takes it without hesitation. “So am I,” Myka says, and it feels incredible – as though she could fly without a plane.

“And with said commitment,” Helena goes on, “comes my assurance that I intend to tackle my… issues.” She pauses for a moment, then adds, “I appreciate that the last months cannot have been easy for you, Myka, and I apologize.”

Myka smiles, and it comes easy – this, too, is something she’s thought about. “Let me just ask you a question,” she says, and when Helena nods, asks, “Did you give it all you had?”

Helena opens her mouth – and then hesitates. Myka approves; she’d rather that Helena think about this particular question and her answer to it. Then Helena weighs her head and says, “I… think I could have been more honest to myself, and to you. But, in my defense, and I ask you to believe me when I say this, I do not think I had the fortitude, back then, for the kind of honesty my… situation would have required. I truly do think that I would not have been able to give my issues more than I did.”

“Okay.” Myka squeezes Helena’s hand. “Apology accepted.”

Helena’s eyebrows arch upwards. “As easy as that?”

Myka laughs. “ _You_ tell _me_ if that admission came easy to you just now.”

The challenge makes Helena blink. “I see,” she says at last. “It most certainly did not.”

“But you were honest, and that’s the next thing I’m gonna need,” Myka says, growing serious again. “I know this is pretty much running counter to what you’ve grown up with, but I’m gonna need you to be honest with me, okay? Just as honest as I’ll be with you. I mean this is about going forward together, and if I don’t know where you’re standing, that’s not gonna work.” She gives Helena’s hand another squeeze. “If you have a problem, if something’s too hard or too hurtful, even if it’s something I’m doing, I need you to tell me. And I’ll tell you if there’s something up with me, okay? Everyone has their burden to carry,” she adds, “but one of the points of being in a relationship is that you don’t have to carry it on your own. You’ve got someone who can lend a shoulder, or at the very least offer a different perspective – but only if you let them, you know what I mean?”

Helena presses her lips together. “You are correct – this is not something I am used to. I do know the burden that you speak of, and I have always prided myself of being able to bear whatever life threw at me. To now consider…” her voice drops away and she shakes her head.

“Paradigm shift?” Myka asks gently. 

Helena nods. “A major one,” she answers. “I think it will require quite a lot of adaptation on my part. And I am willing to adapt, but I would also ask your patience while I familiarize myself with the concept.”

“I totally understand that,” Myka says at once. “The way I grew up… I was also always self-sufficient, and proud of it.”

“What changed?”

Myka huffs a laugh. “Believe it or not,” she says, “but Pete happened.”

“Pete?” Again, Helena’s eyebrows come up. “Dare I ask which Pete?”

This time, Myka laughs more fully. “Oh! Human Pete,” she says, “ _definitely_ human Pete. You see, one thing he’s taught me is that he has my back, that I can rely on him. Not just out in the field – I had that with Sam too. But as a friend. As you said, we only trust until we learn better, and I learned better very early on. I certainly didn’t have anyone to rely on in my parents’ house, in school, in college. I mean even the relationships I had…” she breaks off and shakes her head. “Even with Sam, there was always a part of me that held back. He was married, for crying out loud – how could I trust that he wouldn’t go back to his wife? I came close to believing him, to believing in us, but… but then he got shot.” She runs her free hand through her hair with a sigh, willing herself not to dwell on Sam’s death too long. “But Pete…” she goes on, “Pete helped me re-learn that kind of trust, you know? So, I know where you’re coming from, and I can tell you that re-learning something like that… it works. It’s not fast, and it takes a lot of effort, but it’s possible, and I’m here for it.” She holds onto Helena’s hand with a reassuring smile. 

Helena swallows. “Thank you,” she says. “For this promise, but also for…” she stops, casting around for words. “For showing me such vulnerability,” she says after a moment. 

“Helena, I…” Myka shakes her head and smiles. “I trust you, okay? I mean okay, when you came clear to the regents, that trust took a massive hit, but… yesterday, when you… when we were… you know, down there and… and everything rested on you? I… I knew that I could trust you. I knew that not only would you save my life, but I knew, in my bones, that you would never let me come to harm, that you can’t.” Helena shudders wildly, and Myka is immediately concerned. “What’s wrong?”

A grimace flickers across Helena’s face. “When Sykes… when he forced me to hold a gun to your throat, I…” her mouth forms the beginnings of words, and she shudders again. “Let’s say you had a lot more confidence in me than I had, considering what happened the last time I held a gun to your head. Even if that happened only in my Flute-induced hallucination.”

Myka blanches. “I… oh my god, Helena, I hadn’t even thought about that.”

Again, the grimace, a bit longer this time. “It is not quite as easy for me to not think about it,” Helena whispers. “And down in that cellar, for a while it was all I _could_ think of.” She reaches out her free hand and, in a move that raises every hair on Myka’s body, runs her finger over the center of Myka’s brow. 

It feels _eerie_. It feels… morbid, to know that Helena remembers a life where right in that place there was a bullet hole, put there by her own hands, no matter how much of an accident it had been.

“I’m alive, Helena,” Myka says and her voice is rough. “I know you remember me dying, and I’ll never say anything along the lines of it didn’t happen, because I know it happened for you. But it didn’t happen over here. Right here, I am still alive, and I intend to stay alive for a good long time yet, okay?”

Yet Helena doesn’t seem to listen; her finger is running down the side of Myka’s nose, tracing the trail a drop of blood might take. 

“Helena, look at me,” Myka pleads, catching Helena’s hand in her own. “Look at me, okay? I’m here; I’m alive. Okay?” She can see Helena’s eyes, fixated on that imaginary drop of blood, fill – her face is mere inches away. And that gives Myka an idea. She breathes out a bit more heavily than normal, certain that Helena will be able to feel the puff of air. “Feel that?” she asks. “I’m breathing.” She tugs Helena’s other hand up to her neck, places her fingers on her pulse. “Feel that?” she asks again. “My heart’s beating.” 

Helena sucks in a sharp breath, and her eyes re-focus on Myka. “Myka,” she rasps, and Myka’s eyes flutter shut in gratitude. 

“Yes,” she says, in a rough croak. “I’m here, Helena. I’m here, and I’m alive, okay? And if you have a moment like this again, just… just find me. Just come to me, and get your fingers on my pulse point or hold your hand in front of my mouth or, or, or whatever it takes to reassure you I… I didn’t die. Because I didn’t. I’m alright. I’m alive. Okay?” She opens her eyes again. Helena’s eyes are luminous with tears, lit by bright sunlight blazing in through the plane’s windows; there are shades and textures to the brown of them, and a depth of feeling that takes Myka’s breath away.

“I could not live without you,” Helena whispers roughly. “If I survived in that other reality, it was because I thought that after killing you and subjecting the world to a new ice age, I did not deserve the peace of the grave.”

Myka’s own gaze grows blurry, and she tries to laugh. “Christ, Helena,” she mutters. 

“It is true,” Helena insists in a voice that jars Myka’s ears. “I roamed the continent for months not caring if I lived or died. If I had encountered people desperate or criminal enough to do me harm, I figured I would have deserved it, but I did not. The only people I ran into were unfailingly friendly ones, who shared what they had with me and offered me their hospitality, not understanding how that invariably pushed me away from them. I could not bear it. They could not see the blood I had on my hands, but I could.” Her laugh is almost manic. “I could,” she repeats in a whisper. “When Irene Frederic found me, I felt better than I had in almost a year; I was certain she had come to pass judgement on me, or execute judgement passed earlier.” Helena’s eyes drop shut. “Instead she asked me to follow her to the Warehouse, which had been badly damaged by the cataclysm. She explained that the Warehouse ran on geothermic energy, and that my actions had all but disconnected its power source to the point where containment of almost all artefacts was failing. 

“She brought me into the Warehouse; I don’t remember how, but suddenly we were there. I’m afraid I was not very lucid at that point, generally speaking,” Helena adds with astounding dryness. Myka swallows just as dryly. “She brought me to a subterranean chamber; the last, she said, that was still protected, while around us, artefacts wrought havoc on the rest of the Warehouse. She must have been desperate to call on me for help, but here I was, and she handed me tools and blueprints of the energy system and even a few artefacts, and told me to protect this chamber at all costs. And then she fell to dust.”

Myka jerks back. “She what?!”

Helena blinks and dashes away the tears that, she is surprised to find, have been running down her face. “She died,” she explains. “Died, and turned to dust in front of my eyes as the Warehouse groaned to its demise around me. And I remember thinking that this was a gift – a chance at redemption, a chance to set right a smidgeon of what I had done wrong. So I set to work, as things exploded around me, as aisles fell in and lightning crackled among the shelves. I worked feverishly, not heeding the sparks that singed my fingers, not heeding how the air got warmer and warmer – I had to save this chamber’s protective barrier, come what may.” She inhales – a long and soft intake of breath. “I remember feeling at peace when I made the final connection that would put a force field up around the chamber, a force field that would take in any form of energy directed at it and only grow stronger from the barrage. I remember looking at the force field with wonder – it was truly a sight to behold. And I remember realizing, at last, what subliminally I had known all along – that I was outside of it. That my fingers and my brain had done their work knowingly putting me outside of the only place of safety the Warehouse still had. And I remember how that brought me even more peace, how that was right and proper in the light of all that I had done. I remember thinking that there was a hint of the scent of apples in the air, but that might have been a delusion, or the intrusion of the… real reality, for want of a better word, upon my illusory reality – for a moment after that, I died, and woke up in Artie’s office, my daughter in my arms and the actual scent of apples in my nose.”

Myka’s eyes widen. Apart from everything else, this means… “You don’t remember waking up before that?” she asks, blinking the last remnants of tears from her eyes. 

Helena frowns. “No,” she says slowly, and her eyes move here and there as she sifts through her memories. “No, I don’t,” she finishes. 

“It was only a short moment,” Myka says, with an attempt at a smile. “You saw me and… and had to throw up, so you ran for the bathroom,” she explains. “Christina heard you, I assume, or Doctor Calder did – they were pretty much next door anyway, and they both came to see if they could help you and you… fainted. When you saw them. Well, saw Christina, probably. Cracked your head on the sink,” Myka adds, still ashamed that she wasn’t fast enough to prevent it. 

Helena blinks. “No,” she repeats again, “I do not remember any of this.” Her hand comes up to touch the back of her head. “I remember my head smarting, but I thought that might have come about when I originally fell down.”

“Can I…” Myka takes a deep breath. “Can I ask you something about that?”

“You want to know if I did it on purpose,” Helena assumes. Myka nods, and Helena sighs. “I will admit to recklessness in not wearing gloves and not staying with you,” she says, running her hand through her hair. “That fault lies with me. However, I did not intentionally touch either artefact, nor did I bring the Coffee Pot to where the Flute was. I could feel the Flute calling out to me, offering…” she swallows harshly, “offering a vision of how my life could be – and that was a call that I was powerless to resist. That, too, I am culpable of. I reached out to the Flute with a fervent wish in my hand, to see a version of my life in which Christina had not died – only to live a life in which not only was she dead, but I killed you as well,” she ends bitterly. 

Myka catches Helena’s hand and runs her thumb across its knuckles. “Okay, theory,” she says after a moment, if only to distract Helena out of her memories. When Helena looks up, Myka squeezes her fingers, then lets go and mimics reaching out to a shelved artifact. “So you reached out and touched the Flute wishing for that, yeah? Well, we know that the Coffee Pot has a tendency to jump on people who wish for something. It’s done that to me – that’s how I got ferret Pete. And from what Artie said back then, that wasn’t the first time. And then the Coffee Pot and the Flute interacted – they must have. Or maybe… I mean the Roddenberry Aisle is full of the stuff of dreams, if you will. He was a powerful utopist, and the artifacts created around his show tend to reflect that.” A thought hits her, and she almost laughs out loud. “‘Things are only impossible until they’re not,’” she breathes. “One of his characters, the one connected most strongly to the Flute, outright _said_ that, in one episode. So maybe… maybe the Flute helped the Coffee Pot make possible an impossible wish? And it… it kinda used up all the utopian potential inherent in it, so that the vision the Flute gave you was anything but?”

“Possibly,” Helena says with a skeptical expression. “It is a compelling narrative that fits the facts, at any rate,” she adds with a small smile, and Myka snorts.

“Sweet talker.”

“But with you it is so easy,” Helena gives back, settling back into the sofa with a stronger smile. 

Myka returns it, glad to see Helena back on more stable ground. “Something else I wanted to state outright,” she says after a moment, “because I don’t think I’ve said it in a while.”

“I’m all ears,” Helena says, shifting in her seat to show her undivided attention.

Myka’s smile grows until it feels like it’s splitting her cheeks. “I love you,” she says. “You are amazing and brilliant and infuriating and wonderful; you co-wrote my most favorite books; you make me feel more alive than I think I’ve ever felt – I love you, and I want you to know that. And you don’t have to say it back unless you want to,” she adds quickly. “I’d rather you told me if and when you feel like it than out of a feeling of obli-” 

“Myka?”

Myka’s mouth snaps shut mid-sentence. She’s been rambling, which she knows she does when she’s nervous, and goddamnit but she is, and Helena’s sitting there like a… like a cat pharaoh, all smug and beautiful and serene. “Yes?” she brings out. 

“I love you too.” Helena leans forward, still cat-like but now in a very intense way. “And I would never say that out of a sense of obligation,” she adds with a tinge of distaste to her voice. Her eyes roam Myka’s face for a moment, then settle on her eyes again. Her gaze holds a sense of… of wonder, Myka thinks, that is breathtaking to behold. “I do love you,” Helena whispers, and now Myka can feel the breath of it on her skin, she’s so close. 

Then Christina bullets into the cabin, closely followed by Pete who announces that they’re about to visit the cockpit, and the moment is lost.


	18. Chapter 18

The plane takes them all the way to Featherhead, yet another boon of not being on a commercial flight that Helena is extremely grateful for. Christina seems less upset today, but Helena is certain that her daughter will not have put the harrowing experience of the last days out of her mind that quickly. Yes, children are resilient, but being abducted at gunpoint and witnessing two people die must have been traumatic. The other shoe, as people of this age are wont to say, will drop at some point. 

Pete, and to a lesser degree Steve and even Artie, are doing their best to keep Christina feel entertained – and safe. Helena feels that she herself benefits from this just as much as Christina does, and has an inkling that the three men know this. 

This is truly an exceptional Warehouse team, she thinks, and understands even better why Myka is as attached to them as she is. The thought of asking Myka to leave this behind sits like lead in her mind, heavy and misshapen. It does not eclipse the warmth of Myka saying, outright and with a dazzling smile, that she loved Helena, but it comes annoyingly close.

Helena insists on reimbursing Jamila for the clothes, food and drink that the flight attendant went out of her way to provide, with a tip that is as lavish as her words of gratitude. Truly, Jamila’s presence and actions have warmed Helena’s heart at a crucial time. It is while she shakes Jamila’s hand that Helena sees, on the cuffs of the other woman’s shirt sleeve that peeks out from under her uniform cardigan, cufflinks embossed with the eye of Horus. And all of a sudden, doubt is cast anew – were Jamila’s actions a selfless act of kindness, or regent manipulation yet again? 

Jamila clearly sees Helena’s demeanor change, and keeps a grip on Helena’s hand as she says, in a low voice, “Please don’t take this as subterfuge, Miss Wells. I _was_ there to keep an eye on things, yes, but also to help in whichever way possible. I’d like to think I did a good job of that. Not all regents are self-serving, cold-blooded bastards, you know. I care, and I’m not the only one. We’re working on improvements; trust me on this.”

Helena does not know what Jamila might mean by that – ‘improvements’ is a loose enough term that she could be talking about anything from a better filing system to actual procedural changes. And yet she cannot find it within herself to care; she mistrusts the regents on principle, and an encounter with a friendly one, even one as personally caring as Jamila, does not change that. If the regents are going to improve their act, they are going to have to prove it to Helena – she is most certainly not going to accept that claim at face value. 

As much as Helena liked what Jamila did at Hong Kong’s airport, she can now no longer view it with as much honest gratitude as she did before, and that is aggravating. It also reinforces her plans to get away from the Warehouse, if only for a while – she wants, she _needs_ a world free of sinister eminences grises, a world in which she can take people’s kindnesses at face value without looking for Egyptian symbols, without looking over her shoulder. And yet she also needs Myka, and Myka is part of a team that Helena is unwilling to break up. 

Her inability to find a solution for this, or to at the very least make this equation square up, exasperates Helena in no small measure. 

They come home to a kitchen bursting with food – most of it their favorites, although Leena has provided a few vegetable dishes for balance. Helena, Christina and Myka share the table with the others as a matter of course – the number of plates Leena hands Pete for setting the table pans out, and there is sticky toffee pudding among the desserts that Steve and Christina are to carry to the table. Seeing it, smelling it, Helena is hit by a pang of home-sickness so sharp it takes her breath away. At her mother’s table, sticky toffee pudding was the crowning glory to every Sunday meal, no matter how hard it might have been to put said meal on the table. 

Leena has no way of knowing this, of course, but she does scrutinize Helena for a moment. When Helena uses the general milling about that surrounds seven people setting a table as a cover to excuse herself to the patio, Leena soon follows. 

“I don’t know if anybody’s told you,” the young woman says conversationally, “but I can read people’s auras.” She tilts her head. “Not minds or thoughts,” she adds in explanation, “but a person’s current mood, as a kind of overlay, and beneath that their emotional baseline, if you will.”

Helena does her best to be courteous. “That sounds fascinating,” she says, without much enthusiasm. What on Earth does Leena want with her, to tell her this?

“I wanted to tell you,” Leena says as if she has indeed, despite her assurances to the contrary, read Helena’s mind, “that your aura has changed. In a good way,” she hastens to add when Helena lifts her eyebrows. “As if you’ve come to a decision about something quite profound – there is calmness in parts of your aura that were pretty chaotic before; there’s new… I’d call it trepidation, in other parts, a kind of tentativeness that’s usually associated with someone beginning something new that they’re not quite sure of.”

Helena resents this reading of her and makes no attempt to hide it – if Leena does truly see a person’s general mood, she will know in any case. It is an invasion of her privacy and she does not approve of those in general, much less when it is done in a way she has so little hope of preventing. 

“I’m sorry,” Leena says on cue, and does look contrite, “but I’m not telling you this to make you uncomfortable. I’m telling you because I think…” she breaks off and casts her eyes around the room. “So the thing is,” she says then, in a quieter voice, “it’s not just aura’s. Or not just people’s auras. I can see… possibilities. Shapes,” her hands move about in abstract patterns, “like threads being woven into the largest tapestry you can think of. By watching those threads, I get an idea of what pattern they are forming. And sometimes I can see if the pattern that is taking shape is a good one or a bad one.” She smiles with a quick look at the wall behind which a table is still being set. “Pete does that, too, only not consciously. He calls it his vibes.”

At this, Helena nods. She does not understand Pete’s vibes, but she knows that Myka trusts them implicitly, and that is reason enough to not dismiss them. Still, though - what does Leena want of her?

“The decision I mentioned just now,” Leena says slowly, obviously well aware of Helena’s displeasure, “or decisions plural, maybe – they’re setting you on a good track.”

“Pete would say that he has a good vibe about them?” Helena asks confirmation, trying to keep disdain out of her voice. 

Leena nods. “I realize this might be difficult to accept,” she says with an almost resigned little roll of her eyes, “but I thought it might help you to know that, from what I can perceive, I think you made a good choice – whatever that choice was; that is obviously none of my business. I’m pretty sure it was a profound enough choice to bring some difficulties with it, and when you encounter those, maybe it’ll help knowing that we had this conversation, that I told you I had a good vibe, so to speak, about it. That’s all.” And she withdraws, leaving Helena alone with her thoughts. 

Helena knows she should rejoin the others soon, too – nobody waits with eating until everyone is seated, that has never been a rule in this inn for obvious reasons, but they _will_ wonder – but she takes a moment to replay the conversation she just had. 

Leena has never been anything but amicable. Only once has the young innkeeper ever overstepped the boundaries of polite conversation; the morning after Myka came back from Egypt. And yet even then it had only been to give Helena advice that the younger woman obviously deemed crucial enough to speak up. On top of that, just now there was the ‘obviously none of my business’, with which Leena redrew those boundaries and made it clear that it truly did not matter to her what had brought about the change in Helena’s aura. All that mattered to her was letting Helena know that she saw in that change, in the path it set Helena on, a good pattern for her future. Leena was encouraging Helena to stay on that path, for what it was worth. 

Helena decides that she will determine the worth of Leena’s advice later – right now she will take note of it, not more. She knows she can trust Myka; she knows Myka trusts Pete most of all, but Artie, Claudia, Leena and Steve as well, and that eases Helena’s disposition towards them. Claudia, in particular, has come to trust Helena and Helena, in turn, has come to trust Claudia – the trust of a person so generally mistrustful is powerful, and hard to dismiss. Pete has become a fast friend to Christina, and that is yet another point in his favor, on top of Myka’s trust. Artie, Steve and Leena, though – Arthur Nielsen does not fully trust Helena yet and she cannot fault him for it. She has not interacted with Steve enough to get to know him, but he has been unfailingly polite, kind even, in those interactions they have had. Just as Leena has never, except for that one time, uttered anything beyond friendly enquiries after Helena’s and Christina’s health or preferences, or entreaties for assistance and instructions on how best to provide said assistance. To rethink her trust in Leena means to reshape her picture of the young innkeeper, and frankly, that requires more thought and effort than Helena is willing to give the matter just now. 

Their midday meal is scrumptious, but talk around the table is sparse except for Christina and the people engaging with her – mostly Pete and Claudia, as things stand. The latter is telling Christina how her plush toy dragon helped them find her, and thanks her for bringing it along. 

“He was scared,” Christina claims of her toy dragon. “There was a very scary man.” She turns to Steve. “You helped him,” she accuses. 

Steve meets her gaze openly. “I _pretended_ to help him so we would know what he was planning,” he says. “I am very sorry that I wasn’t able to keep Tyler safe.” 

“Apologize to Toothless, not me,” Christina says, “I wasn’t scared at all.”

Helena meets Myka’s gaze and sees her confusion and worry reflected in it. This is plainly not what happened – perhaps this is Christina’s way to handle it? But this kind of pretense cannot be healthy. 

Steve, whose frown shows his own confusion, does not play along. “Hey Christina,” he says, “do you know that I have a secret superpower?”

Helena’s daughter stares at him, equal parts baffled and delighted. “You do?”

Steve nods. “Do you want to know what it is?” When Christina nods avidly, he smirks, then says, “I can tell when people are lying. You _were_ a bit scared, weren’t you? It wasn’t just Toothless.”

Christina’s face darkens, and Helena shifts in her seat. Is this the best way to go forward? Then Christina gives the tiniest of nods. “Yeah,” she whispers. 

“That’s okay,” Steve says with a small but encouraging smile. “It was a very scary situation, and it’s good to be scared in those. Fear can be really helpful, you know.” He proceeds to explain to Christina, in impressively suitable words, the human body’s reaction to fear. 

Helena listens intently. Half of this she knows from experience, but the scientific underpinnings of it are fascinating. Myka catches her eyes halfway through and smiles at her, indicating Steve and Christina with a shift of her gaze. Helena sends a tentative smile back. When Steve explains the aftermath of fear, the body’s way of metabolizing adrenaline (‘the stuff that helps you react faster, remember? It’s not good for it to be in your body for long, so your body gets rid of it.’), he is teaching Helena just as well as he is Christina. 

When he is done, he throws a quick grin at Helena – he knows that she has been listening. “So, you see,” he tells Christina and anyone else who might be listening in, “fear is nothing to be afraid of. It’s an ally. It fights alongside you if you know how to let it.”

Christina nods solemnly. “Were _you_ afraid?” she asks him.

Steve nods. “Yes, I was. I was afraid that Walter Sykes would hurt you, or your mom, or any of us, really. I was afraid that he would notice me move and would keep me from…” he hesitates for a moment, then continues, “doing what I did. I was afraid that I would miss him and make things worse.”

“But your fear fought alongside you,” Christina states.

Steve nods again. “Because I’ve learned how to let it.”

“Can you teach me?”

“Absolutely,” he says, and Helena’s heart grows towards him. “We can start this afternoon, once we’re done digesting.” He pats his stomach. “I’m pretty full,” he says, “and it’s better to rest a bit when you’re this full.”

Christina nods sagely, agreeing with him for the sake of nodding sagely, Helena has no doubt. “Indeed,” her daughter says solemnly, and Helena bites the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.

When, during their clearing the table, Christina is distracted by carrying a plate loaded with forks and knives to the kitchen, Steve catches Helena’s elbow. “Nothing big,” he says, “don’t worry. I’ll just teach her to yell ‘no!’ very loudly, and some basics of awareness and breathing. Would that be okay with you?”

She grasps his arm firmly. “Completely,” she says, and adds, “thank you so very much, Steve.”

He nods. “I figure this experience was rough for her – and you, too,” he adds. “If you wanna learn some breathing techniques too, to help with adrenaline reabsorption, just let me know. I’m not a psychologist by any means,” he says, looking aside, “but, you know. Sometimes breathing is hard, and knowing how to do it… it can help.” His smile is lightning-quick and equally as bright.

Helena stares after him as he assembles a stack of dirty dishes to take to the kitchen. 

“Steve’s a good man,” Artie says from behind her. When she turns around to stare at him, he simply gives her a smile – the truest she has ever received from him. “Glad you’re okay. Your kid, too. You saved the day back there,” he adds then, “well done.”

Helena blinks. From Arthur Nielsen, this is three rousing cheers and a presidential reception. “Thank you,” she manages before he, too, goes to rejoin the clearing of the table. 

The next person to catch Helena is Myka, when the table is pristine and the dishwasher busy. “Do you have a minute?”

“Christina-” Helena begins, and cranes her neck to find her daughter. 

“Is getting dressed to go outside with Pete and play in the garden,” Myka says. “Pete said that contrary to Steve, he has a lot of energy to burn after lunch, so he offered to watch her. I think that might include some softballs coming at the kid.”

Helena shakes her head in surprise. “I mused earlier on how close this team is,” she says around the lump forming in her throat, “but I would have never thought that their closeness would so readily include Christina and myself.” She snorts softly. “Even Artie thanked me, a minute before you approached me.”

Myka simply smiles and gestures towards the living room. “You’re part of it,” she says, leading the way. “We might not live in this building anymore, but this is a family; one that you’re part of.” She looks over her shoulder at Helena who is following her. “Better get used to it,” she says. 

Once Helena is inside the living room, Myka shuts the door behind her, then turns around to face Helena again. Her nerves are fluttering, but she’s got to- “I… I’ve been wanting to kiss you ever since we were so _rudely_ -” she says.

“-untimely-” Helena adds with a nod, stepping into Myka’s personal space immediately. Her hands find Myka’s waist and send shivers up Myka’s spine.

“-heartlessly,” Myka says with a profound groan, “interrupted. Do you think now would be a good time?” she asks. Her lips are fractions of inches from Helena’s, and she can feel the other woman nod.

It isn’t their first kiss, and therefore a bit less clumsy than first kisses usually are. Myka already knows the scent of Helena’s skin, the softness of her lips, the place Helena’s nose will come to rest on. But the angle at which their mouths meet is new; Myka is taller than Helena and that is not new but it is new from the point of view of kissing (Sam was taller than Myka). And the way Helena molds her body against Myka’s certainly is new – and incredibly arousing. 

All of a sudden, Myka is very, very glad that she has never experienced this before – she would _not_ have been able to sleep with Helena in her arms if she had. All of a sudden, she realizes that there’s been a compartment in her mind that she’s kept very, very carefully shut, and now its door has banged open and her desire is running _wild_. 

Myka leans into the kiss. Her arms are around Helena’s waist and she tugs the other woman even closer, and Helena’s arms come up behind Myka’s back and it is like they’ve been doing this for ages and like they’re doing this for the very first time when neither of this is true. Myka’s arms slide up, too – and Helena freezes. It takes Myka’s hormone-addled brain a second to realize why, and then she drops her arms as fast as she can, which is not nearly fast enough. The damage is done; she can see it in Helena’s expression. 

“I’m sorry,” she says lamely, straightening up to try and give Helena as much space as the door at her back (when did that happen?) allows. 

Helena’s face is pinched, taut, all angles. Then she sighs, and it loses some of its sharpness. “So am I,” Helena says and opens her eyes. They are dark with annoyance. “A _day_ ,” she spits. “I wish life would allow me a _day_ without reminders of all the ways in which I’m broken.”

“You’re not broken,” Myka says immediately. “Helena, you’re not broken. Yes, you’ve got cracks all over you, but you’re still standing, okay? You’re still walking, talking, living; there are moments when I am _in awe_ of how you even still function. And yeah, believe me, I’m well aware that I only see what you allow me to see, and that there’s a ton of stuff going on inside you that I have no idea of, but even so, okay? Even so.”

Helena feels taken aback by Myka’s fervor. “I… thank you for your opinion,” she manages, and, upon seeing Myka’s frown deepen, adds quickly, “I didn’t mean to sound disparaging. I merely… Myka, I cannot, I _can not_ share your sentiment.” She takes a step back and lets go of Myka, lets her arms fall to her sides and her gaze drop to the floor. 

“Okay,” Myka sighs, “okay, yeah, I know that feeling. But, you know, think about yourself from an outsider’s point of view, okay? You have withstood countless attempts to crush your spirit – by other people, by things that happened to you, by artifacts, and you’re still standing tall. So many people, so many events have tried to get you down, but they haven’t succeeded. You’re still alive – and not just that; you live in the future, and you have your daughter by your side, and you are… you are loved.”

Helena hears Myka’s words, she truly does. It simply does not feel as though they apply to her. She tells Myka so, and Myka nods, and takes her hand, and says, “Will you remember them, though? For later, when you feel like they might?” 

“Yes,” Helena nods, because there is no way in which she will forget words spoken by Myka with such passion. 

“Good. Remember them, and remind yourself that this is how I see you. Deal?”

Helena nods again – what else can she do?

Myka simply smiles and leads her to the sofa. They find their favorite spots to sit down – one at each end, feet almost touching. Then Myka remembers something, smiles at Helena and leans her head back a little. “Unless you want to test your second hypothesis again and snuggle a little,” she says, pulling her legs to the side to indicate that Helena could sit next to her if she wanted to. 

Helena shakes her head, though, and says, “I believe we’re about to continue our earlier conversation on the plane. I think that would be helped by us being able to see each other’s expressions.”

“True,” Myka agrees easily, settling back into corner between the sofa’s back and armrest. “Okay,” she says with a deep breath, “first of all, I really, really wanted to thank you. One, for saving my life, but much more important, I wanted to thank you for… how do I put this?” She frowns a little, trying to find the right words. _Be plain_ , she decides, and says, “You emailed the psychologist. And then you devised test set-ups for hypotheses you formulated about your mental health.” She smiles, happy and hopeful. “Both of those are really big steps, from where I stand,” she adds. “I think they’ll move things forwards for you, and that was something that was really on my mind for the past few months.”

Helena nods. “I realize that,” she says quietly. “And not just now – I was aware of it every day. But, Myka, I couldn’t-” she breaks off, and Myka can see her swallow. Closing her eyes, Helena continues in a whisper, “There were days when _breathing_ was a struggle, much less walking and talking, or mothering an eight-year-old child. You pointed me towards websites about emotional health – when I perused them, some of the articles and treatises rang so true they took my breath away; so true I fled from the computer several times, unable to continue reading or even seeing the words that described so closely what I felt.”

“Man,” Myka sighs, “you’re too far away – I really would like to hold your hand right now, or let you know in some other way that I’m with you.”

“I have an idea,” Helena says with a small smile, and scoots closer. She nudges Myka’s legs apart and sits between them, one knee drawn up to her chest, the other leg wrapped around its ankle. Myka positions her legs so that they frame Helena, and _now_ she can reach out and grab one of Helena’s hands. She squeezes, and Helena smiles again and lowers her head. “Thank you,” she whispers, and squeezes back. The closeness of their contact would have, minutes ago, been scintillating. Now, with Helena as vulnerable as she is, all Myka can think about is reassuring her, being there for her. 

“What did you find?” Myka asks tentatively. “On those websites. Do you want to talk about that?”

“Depression,” Helena says, not looking up. “Panic attacks. Post-traumatic stress disorder. There really is a lot of research out there, isn’t there.”

Myka nods, then adds, “Yeah,” because Helena is still looking at her knee. Helena’s words come as no big surprise – what is surprising is that Helena is even talking about these things. 

“The question of if I am affected by these issues, and if so how much and in which particular combination, and what would be the right kind of treatment…” Helena breaks off with a sigh. “Every single page recommended speaking with a psychiatrist or therapist.” A quick, humorless smile flickers across her face. “And you’re right, most pages discussed these topics in quite reaffirming ways. I take it there used to be a stigma around these issues?”

“For a long time,” Myka says, “and for a lot of people there is even now. My parents’ generation definitely; some of my generation too. It’s getting better, but that’s a very recent thing, comparatively speaking.”

Helena takes a deep breath. “I think…” she hesitates a moment longer, then looks up to meet Myka’s eyes. “I think that had I not had the… leeway to research this at my own pace, I would not have come to this place of acceptance as fast as I have. Therefore _I_ would very much like to thank _you_ , too, for your patience. I am well aware that you would have wished for me to be quicker about it, but…” she drops her head again, shakes it, runs her fingers through her hair, looks up at Myka again. “I truly believe I could not have proceeded any faster.”

Tears jump into Myka’s eyes. “I know,” she whispers, clears her throat, and repeats in a stronger voice, “Helena, I know. It just… it was so difficult. Seeing how much you were struggling, being unable to help you, knowing what _could_ help you, but seeing you not go there-” she breaks off and shakes her head. “Sorry, that came out wrong,” she apologizes. “Waiting for you to make a move in that direction, rather,” she amends, and adds, “I’m so glad you did.”

Helena’s smile is shaky. “I… will say that talking about this topic is still really rather difficult,” she says, and Myka nods immediately. 

“I understa-” 

“Hey Myka?” The door bursts open and Claudia rushes through. “Did you- oh! Oh my go-” She practically goggles at how close Helena and Myka are sitting – although they aren’t as close as they were, Myka notices; Helena is pulling back. “I’m sorry,” Claudia backpedals, already halfway back through the door, “I didn’t mean to-”

“As a matter of fact,” Helena says, turning to Claudia without letting go of Myka’s hand, “there is something on my mind that could benefit from your input, too.”

“M-my input?” Claudia stutters, obviously stunned. “Um, okay?” She hovers just inside the door until Helena motions for her to come closer, then she sits cross-legged in front of the couch. “What’s cooking, then?”

“Cooking?” Helena asks, wide-eyed. “I believe we just- oh.” She takes the deep breath of a long-suffering language purist. “I see. What is cooking, dear Claudia, are my plans for the future. The near future,” she specifies. “I know the past months have not been easy on our friendship, what with me, us, moving out, and I would hope to amend that.” Helena hesitates for a long moment, then sucks in a breath and meets Claudia’s eyes squarely. “I’m sure you’re well aware that I have some… emotional issues to work through, and I haven’t made much progress on that front.”

Myka’s mouth almost drops open. 

Claudia’s mouth _does_ drop open. “Whoa,” she mutters under her breath, then adds slightly louder, “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I… I got that.” There is a fierce blush in her cheeks when she goes on, “But you don’t have to tell me about that, I mean that’s super personal and-”

“And as you are my friend,” Helena insists, “and can offer unique wisdom on this matter, I _want_ very much to tell you about it.”

Myka can only sit and blink at this interaction, which is why it’s just as well that there’s no need for her to contribute anything. 

Claudia blushes even more deeply and drops her gaze. “Um, okay. I… I, um… Wisdom, huh?” She laughs nervously. “I guess I… I guess I’d say appreciate your allies,” she casts a quick glance at Myka, “and… and don’t let anybody tell you _they_ know better than you do what’s good for you and… um…” she blinks, searching her memory from the looks of it. “And when you hit a hard day, don’t think that it’ll eat up all the progress you made. This is not a straight line,” her hand rises in a clear diagonal, “from Shithole Town to Fine-and-Dandy-Ville, okay? It’ll have its ups and downs,” and here her hand moves in what’s much closer to a rollercoaster pattern, “but you gotta not let the downs get you too down, because you’ll get through them, you know? I mean…” she tilts her head and scrutinizes Helena, “forewarned forearmed kinda thing, am I right?”

Helena nods. “You are right indeed, I believe,” she says with a fond smile. “Thank you.”

“Sure, no biggie,” Claudia says and makes as if to rise again. 

“No, Claudia – please wait a moment longer,” Helena says, reaching out her hand. “The second reason I brought up our friendship and its… difficulties, is that I…” she takes a deep breath and casts a glance at Myka. “I have an idea – not quite a plan yet, rather more of a…” she smiles briefly, lightning-quick, and continues, “a hypothesis, that I would like to run past you, is that the expression?”

“Bounce off of works too,” Claudia nods. “Shoot.”

Helena dips her head to hide her smile, then grows serious again. “I am thinking about relocating to a place further away from the Warehouse than an Univille neighborhood,” she says. Then she quickly raises her hands and casts a plaintive look at Myka and Claudia in turn. “Only thinking about it, you must understand. There are good arguments both for and against such an endeavor, and I would very much like to hear your thoughts on it before I make any decisions.”

Claudia blinks. For a moment, there is sheer, blinding heartache in her eyes, but then she presses her lips together and nods. “Yeah, I can see how that would be a good idea,” she says. 

Myka looks at the young woman for a moment longer, then turns to Helena. “What, from your point of view, are the pros and cons here?” she asks. 

Helena tilts her head. “As a matter of fact,” she replies, “I would rather get your opinions on that, to see if they match or differ from my thoughts.”

Myka takes a breath. It’s not like she hasn’t thought of this, herself, and making pro-and-con lists is something she does in her sleep – she has done so for this very topic; of course she has. But as Helena says, maybe it’s a good idea to hear from someone else first, see if their take mashes with hers. So she turns to Claudia. “You wanna go first?”

Claudia makes a little ‘eep’ noise, but then straightens. Myka hides a proud grin – Claudia has come so far since joining the Warehouse team. “Okay, alright, so let’s start with the pros first, yeah? Easy: you wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of freaking _nowhere_. That’s a big plus. I mean there’s _nothing_ here, literally nothing!”

Helena gives a very un-lady-like snort. “Not _literally_ nothing, I think you’ll find,” she says dryly, and Myka wants to kiss that language purist mouth. 

Claudia rolls her eyes. “Alright, alright, Miss Merriam-Wells-ter,” she gripes. “But you gotta agree it’s pretty dead around here. I mean there’s not even a theater!” She sniffs deprecatingly and goes on, “So I can see what’d drive you to greener pastures. Also, yeah, I mean, some physical distance where people can’t be all ‘I know you’re technically not working for the Warehouse anymore, but can you look at this and that and this real quick?’ would be a bonus too, even though I’m usually that person.” She grimaces, pulling her head between her shoulders. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Claudia, you might not know it,” Helena says, “but our little projects have helped keep me sane.” She thinks for a moment, then adds, “Literally.”

Claudia’s eyes grow wide. “Dude…” she breathes. “I mean I knew you-” she breaks off and gulps. “Dude.”

Helena inclines her head. “Indeed.” She casts another brief glance at Myka, an apologetic one this time for whatever reason, and continues, “But let’s not dwell on that, beyond me taking this opportunity to thank you – I deeply appreciate your friendship.”

Claudia looks as though she wants to run away or sink into the floor. “No biggie,” she murmurs, bright red from her ears to her neck now. 

“I shall take a leaf out of your book,” Helena smiles at Myka, then returns her attention back to Claudia, “and ask if you would be amenable to an embrace.”

Claudia stares at her for a moment, looking very much like a deer in the headlights. Then she surges forwards and engulfs Helena in a fierce hug that has Myka smiling brilliantly. The friendship between these two is unique, close, and important – if Helena does go through with her plan to move away… Myka’s face falls. Yes, there is Skype, yes, there are planes – but a cross-country friendship is hard to maintain. 

“See,” Claudia sniffs as she lets go and settles back on the rug again, “that’d be numero uno on the con list: I wouldn’t get to do that anymore. Not so much the hugging,” she is quick to add, and all three of them grin at the claim, “but the having you here. You know, to pick your brain and stuff.” She pulls her face into a frown. “I mean we can Skype, but it won’t be the same,” she echoes Myka’s thought. “I couldn’t just come and join you in your Den of Iniquity, and you couldn’t come crying for help with Android.”

“Which I haven’t had to recur to for a while,” Helena protests, but she does so with a smile. “You’re quite right.”

“It’s a bit selfish, though, isn’t it,” Claudia says, hanging her head. “I mean this is about you. If moving away helps you, I’d let Artie re-decorate my room before I stop you.” 

“Claudia,” Helena says softly, “if I do move away, I will miss you terribly.”

Myka can see the tears shoot into the young woman’s eyes. “Fudge, H.G., you can’t go around and say things like that,” Claudia mutters, blinking furiously. “Can we, uh, change the topic or something? I mean where do you wanna go? What do you wanna do?”

“I’m not quite certain as to either,” Helena says matter-of-factly. “Location-wise, I think that New England might be a good choice – not because of the name,” she adds with an eye-rolling smile, and Claudia snaps her mouth shut and mock-pouts, “but because it is closest to actual England in case I want to visit, which I foresee happening at least semi-regularly. For the same reason, I would like to be close to an airport that serves London.”

“So Boston,” Claudia nods. “Or New York,” she adds with an excited gleam in her eyes. “Man, I’ve always wanted to have a friend in New York that I could visit. Which is totally not a reason for you to pick a place, obvs.”

Helena’s lips twitch. “I have thought about New York,” she says. “I think,” she turns to Myka, “if relocation does happen, it makes sense to visit both places to get a reading of them before making any decisions.”

Myka nods. Her throat is dry – this is quite specific already; she wouldn’t have thought that Helena’s thoughts and plans had proceeded this far. 

“As to what I would do,” Helena goes on, “I do not know yet. My experience at the community college so far hasn’t been too heartening; I am not sure I’m cut out for the educational system.”

Claudia snaps her fingers. “Makerspaces,” she says.

Helena tilts her head. “I… think I saw that on the course schedule,” she says slowly, “an excursion sometime later this year. What exactly is a makerspace?”

Claudia’s eyes grow round. “Dude,” she says, low and fervent, “only, like, the coolest workshop ever. If you don’t mind sharing, that is. But you’re sharing it with people who know what they’re doing, and in case those people are mouth-breathing sexists who’d rather look down your shirt than teach you something, which, y’know, has been known to happen, there’s always women-only makerspaces, or women-only nights. If those places know what they’re doing,” she adds darkly. “Anyway, depending on the place’s size, they have all kinds of equipment and people who know how to use it and can teach you. CNCs, laser cutters, 3D printers, all the expensive gadgets. And then you can make stuff, hence,” Claudia makes a ‘voilà’ gesture, “makerspace.” Her eyes gain a wistful look. “I bet MIT has the epitome of all makerspaces. So maybe you should consider Boston, after all. Or Cambridge, really.”

“Cambridge?” Helena asks with a confused expression. 

“Cambridge, Massachusetts,” Claudia explains with a smirk. “Home of the MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” she elaborates. “One of the best unis in the world, and maybe one day I’ll get a degree there.” She grins at Myka. “You know, when people finally stop trying to get me to enroll.”

Myka rolls her eyes at her. 

Helena, for her part, is nodding slowly. “I shall have to research these makerspaces,” she says. “Thank you for bringing them to my attention, Claudia.”

“Sure,” the redhead shrugs, brings up her knees and hugs them. “So…” she says, drawing out the syllable, “do you need more pros and cons from us or are you going to tell us what _you_ think now?”

Helena smiles. “Most of what you’ve said aligns quite closely with what I’ve thought,” she says. “There are a few things more I’ve been considering, such as what it would mean to Christina to uproot her after such a short while here and move her to a new place with the prospect of only staying a year.”

“Who says a year?” Claudia shrugs again. “I mean this is about you finding yourself, right? Why set a deadline on that?”

“Why indeed,” comes a new voice from the door.

Claudia yelps and almost ties her legs into a knot as she half-rises. “Mrs. Frederic!”

“Relax, Agent Donovan,” the Caretaker says and walks into the room. “Might I join your conversation?” she asks Helena, who, struck speechless, simply nods and gestures at the easy chair opposite the couch. Mrs. Frederic sits down and primly adjusts her skirt and glasses. “First of all,” she says, “I would like to thank you – all of you – for your work in saving the Warehouse from Mister Sykes.” Her lips pull in distaste around the man’s name. “Especially you, Miss Wells, have shown commendable bravery and fortitude in a very stressful situation.”

“Thank you,” Helena says hesitantly, clearly wondering, as does Myka, what this visit signifies. 

“Second,” the Caretaker goes on, “I am here to clarify one matter – Miss Wells, the professional support the Regents spoke of,” she casts a brief glance towards Claudia as if to explain her circumspection, “is yours whether or not you decide to resume your work as an agent. It is not contingent upon anything but your decision. In case you were wondering,” she adds with what is almost a smile. 

“I was indeed,” Helena admits, “but I reasoned it would be easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”

“Dude,” Claudia grins, “did you just quote Grace Hopper to Mrs. Frederic?” Helena shoots her a quick smirk and Claudia whoops.

“Moreover,” Mrs. Frederic’s voice cuts through Claudia’s laughter, “I would like to assure both you and Agent Bering that the amount of time spent elsewhere does not have any bearing on the Warehouse’s offer to return as agents. For either of you.” This time, there is a smile when she adds, “Take all the time you need.”

“Frankly, I am not yet convinced this is a good idea,” Helena says, color high in her cheeks, and again, Myka is surprised at the amount and scope of things Helena is so readily divulging here. “The Warehouse,” Helena continues, “for all its downsides, is an environment I know. To leave it… I am not sure I have the strength that that would take.”

“Which you would only know once you take the step,” Mrs. Frederic says. She leans forward slightly, eyes so intensely on Helena that Myka and Claudia might just as well not be in the same room. “Miss Wells, believe me I know the benefits of stepping away from the Warehouse in order to gain a clearer picture of what one’s future might hold. My title, my _task_ , is to take care – not just of the Warehouse building or the artifacts housed within it, but of the whole endeavor. And that includes the agents employed by it.” She presses her lips together for a short moment, and Myka thinks she might just have suppressed a sigh. “I have said before, Miss Wells, that the regents have wronged you. I have also said before that the Warehouse approves of current developments. What I have chosen not to divulge before the regents, if only for, shall we say, political reasons, is that the Warehouse very much did not approve of your bronzing – or rather, of the amount of time you spent bronzed within its walls.”

All three of them – Helena, Claudia and Myka – are speechless now. Mrs. Frederic gives a fleeting smile at this display, then goes on. 

“Just as you were aware the whole time, the Warehouse was aware of you. The Warehouse is not a human being with emotions and thoughts – but it has some ideas of what is right and what is wrong for it, and – excuse me for saying so,” the Caretaker clears her throat, “but your presence within its walls was a constant… aggravation, if you will. Like a pebble in your shoe that you cannot get out. Don’t misunderstand my words,” she holds up a hand, and Helena’s eyebrows, which had risen in protest, sink again. “I don’t mean to say that you were an annoyance. Inasmuch as the Warehouse understands humans and our emotions and motivations, it was… sad for you. It felt your grief, your fury, your descent into… unwholesome thoughts.”

“Indeed,” Helena murmurs, eyes cast to the side while Claudia sits on the floor, stock-still and open-mouthed. 

“Felt them for over a hundred years,” Mrs. Frederic goes on. “And through it, when I became Caretaker, so did I.” She shifts in her seat, looking almost uncomfortable. “I brought the matter to the regents then, and I repeated that plea each time I thought it had any chance of being heeded. I regret to say that I was unsuccessful, and I apologize for not pleading your case in a more… forceful manner.”

Now Helena’s mouth, too, drops open. “I…” she begins, then breaks off again. “I did not know my case was ever considered,” she says finally, and Myka nods along. “I thought I… I thought my provisions for my debronzing had been clear,” she adds, and Myka nods to that, too.

“They were,” Mrs. Frederic confirms. “However,” she adds, hand raised once more, “your torment was clear to the Warehouse and thus, to me. And while my position requires a certain… ruthlessness at times, it also cannot be held successfully without a deep understanding of human nature, and a corresponding amount of empathy.” She shifts again, sitting up straighter. “Which is the main reason for my presence here and my words to you. I have great interest in seeing you heal, Miss Wells, in seeing you reach your full potential – be it within the Warehouse’s employ when you are ready, or outside of it in case that is what you decide.” Then she turns to Myka, who barely suppresses a surprised yelp. “As for you, Agent Bering, while your potential is, or was, being greatly fulfilled as an agent, I do understand that sometimes, our lives call us to different paths. No matter where that path takes you, you will always have a spot here, as an agent or in whichever other capacity you might decide to employ your talents for the Warehouse.” She stands and smoothes down the fabric of her shirt. “I wish both of you the best of luck and success,” she says, and then looks down at Claudia Donovan. “Agent Donovan, this is where we take our leave,” she adds, and Claudia jumps up at once. 

“Taking my leave right now,” she says with a jerky salute, then throws Helena and Myka a shy grin. “Talk to you later?” 

Myka nods immediately. “Absolutely,” she says, and then both Claudia and Mrs. Frederic leave the room.

“That was… something,” Myka says after staring at the door for a full five seconds. 

“Agreed,” Helena mutters. She huffs out a breath and stretches. Myka can hear her joints crackle and winces in sympathy. “I… am beginning to like Irene Frederic almost despite myself,” Helena admits. “There is still no love lost between the regents and me, but it does seem that Mrs. Frederic is in my corner.”

“And she’s a great ally to have on your side,” Myka adds. “I mean Kosan says he’s calling the shots, but really I’m not so sure. And that’s what bothers me most about the regents,” she says with a heartfelt sigh, and begins to ticks items off on her fingers. “We don’t know what the scope of their authority is, we don’t know how they’re picked, we don’t know how and why they decide what they decide… it’s a giant black box, and we only get glimpses of what’s going on.” She purses her mouth angrily and adds, as if that wasn’t clear enough, “I don’t like it. I mean this is arguably one of the most important institutions in the world, and it has a ruling body that’s a black box. How is that… how is that even remotely okay? What if a regent makes a mistake? What if they screw up? Are they held accountable? By whom?” She flops her arms and sinks back into the corner between the sofa’s armrest and its back. “Okay, rant over. I’m sorry.”

Helena chuckles. “Don’t be, love. It’s good to know I’m not the only one with these misgivings.”

“Oh you aren’t,” Myka says immediately, still in a dark voice. “I bet even the two of us aren’t. I mean you can’t look at-” she flares up again, then drops the sentence. “Nevermind,” she says, taking a deep breath to calm herself down. Then she smiles and changes the topic. “You know, I really like that you call me ‘love’ now.”

Helena can feel her cheeks color again. It irks her, but not as much as it irked her before, when Irene Frederic was talking to her. “That is… reassuring to know,” she says. Truth to tell, it is elating to feel able to give voice to her love to Myka this way. 

“Good,” Myka smiles brilliantly – an expression that never fails to make Helena’s heart stutter. “Do you want me to… um, reciprocate? Would you mind?”

Helena begins to shake her head no to Myka’s last question, then reconsiders. “As long as you don’t call me ‘baby’ or ‘babe’,” she clarifies in what she hopes is a dignified matter. “I would not take kindly to pet names of that ilk.”

“Ugh, yeah,” Myka laughs with a mock shudder. “Sam used to call me ‘bunny’, no matter how often I told him I thought it was demeaning. He’d just say that’s how he saw me and didn’t even see how that did _not_ help matters.”

“More fool him,” Helena quips.

Myka snorts a laugh, but then sobers up again. “He wasn’t a bad partner,” she maintains, and Helena is quick to nod. She did not mean to disparage a man who obviously was important to Myka. “He just… oh man, he had his moments.”

“As do we all,” Helena agrees, very soberly. 

“Don’t push it, Wells,” Myka grins at her. 

“I do like it when you call me Wells like that,” Helena admits. “Maybe I should switch to calling you Bering. It does have a ring to it,” she says, moving closer to Myka – after this visit from Mrs. Frederic, she is now ready for a renewed attempt at proving her hypothesis. Myka readily opens her arms, and Helena sinks into them with a sighed, “Wells and Bering, solving puzzles and saving the day.”

She can hear Myka’s chuckle – and she can feel it reverberate through her. It is one of the most delightful feelings she has even known. “I think that in the foreseeable future,” Myka says, “saving the day will consist mostly of helping Christina do her homework.” She squeezes Helena’s shoulders briefly. “And hey: Bering and Wells.”

Helena decides not to press the issue. Myka does have alphabetical order on her side.


	19. Chapter 19

Persuading Christina, once they have returned to their own home, to go to sleep is not difficult that night. Helena persuading herself that Christina can stay in her own room is, however – she would much rather keep her daughter close, in case of renewed night terrors, and for her own peace of mind. Christina, too, has stuck close to Helena all evening. Finally, it is decided that the four of them will all spend the night together, ‘sleepover style’, as Myka calls it. Helena’s bed is the largest, king size to the full size beds that Myka and Christina sleep in, so her room it is. 

By unspoken consent, they all get ready for bed at the same time – all of them are done with the day. The bathroom, large as it is, is meant for two people, not three, using it at once, but they make do. Helena thinks it is actually kind of cozy, the unceremoniousness of three people brushing their teeth at the same time; the bumps of elbows and shoulders, the ‘oh, sorry’s and the ‘you’re good’s, and Christina’s giggles and squeals.

The unceremoniousness continues, happily, once they are actually in bed; there’s more shuffling, more ‘oh sorry’s and ‘you’re good’s, and many more giggles, not just from Christina. 

There is a lot of love among them, and it brings Helena close to tears more than once. Myka, too, is clearing her throat and sniffling her nose a bit more often than usual. 

Then Christina asks, “Mummy, are we going away from here?” She is nestled in Helena’s arms and Helena is nestled in Myka’s arms, much as they were on the plane – with the difference that they all are awake now. 

Helena is taken aback by the question. “Did anyone tell you that we are?” she asks back.

Christina shifts a little, to look up at her mother. “I was a bit afraid when Uncle Pete and I were playing in the garden.”

Helena blinks as she tries to put this sentence in connection with Christina’s question. Then it comes to her. “Afraid that another bad person would come?”

Christina nods. “Uncle Pete said that I don’t have to be afraid anymore, but he understands that I am, because that man was a really bad man and did really scary and not-okay things. And then he said that maybe we will move somewhere where there aren’t any bad people.”

Helena can feel Myka’s hand clench around the fabric of her pajama top, and she herself is quite put out with Agent Lattimer. 

Before she can answer, though, Myka speaks up. “Two things, Christina, okay?” she says more calmly than Helena could utter anything right now. “Yes, your mom has been thinking about moving somewhere else, but she hasn’t decided yet. She’s still thinking about it, and she’s going to talk about this with you, too, before making any decisions, okay? So don’t worry that you won’t know until it happens. You get a say too, alright?”

This has not exactly been Helena’s plan – but on second thought she can see the sense in Myka’s words. Agency is important for Myka Bering, she has said so repeatedly and consistently; and that includes the agency of an eight-year-old child.

“Second,” Myka continues, “if we move, it’s not going to be to get away from bad people. That’s not how we do things. When there are bad people, you go and get the police, and they deal with them. We are all members of special kinds of police; Pete, Steve and I,” she adds, “and that’s why we dealt with this particular bad guy. If another comes along, we’ll do it again.”

“Uncle Pete said that too,” Christina nods, and Myka’s hand relaxes on Helena’s hip. 

“Good,” Myka says emphatically. 

“Mummy, are you a member of a special police too?”

Helena thinks about her answer for a while before saying, “I used to be, in a way. Right now, I’m…” she hesitates, trying to find an understandable explanation.

“On leave,” Myka completes the sentence with a small squeeze at Helena’s hipbone. “That’s a bit like school vacation – you don’t have to work, but one day it’ll be over and you’ll go back.”

And if that is not the perfect opening to broach a related topic with Christina, Helena has not heard a better one. “As a matter of fact,” she cuts in, “it’s a bit more like when you’re too sick to go to school. I’m not sick in the sense that I have a cold or a stomach bug like you did, but…” she takes a deep breath. “Love, remember when Myka was in Egypt and I was so very afraid for her well-being?”

Christina nods. “You were very sad,” she says, and her voice is as small as her eyes are round.

“I was indeed,” Helena confirms, fighting to keep a grimace at the thought of that dreadful day off of her face. ‘Very sad’ is putting it mildly indeed. “And there have been other times,” she goes on, “in the past few months when I was just as sad and afraid; times when I did not show how badly I felt because I did not want to worry you or Myka overmuch.” She smiles down at her child, conscious of the miracle she is holding in her arms. “But I got better when Myka returned, remember? And I will learn what I can do when I feel that way, so that it won’t be quite as bad next time.”

“Ask Steve to help you! He taught me to yell ‘no!’ very loudly today,” Christina offers proudly. “And how to breathe properly,” she adds.

“Steve has offered his aid, yes,” Helena confirms. “And there are other people who will help me, too. But I will need to work very attentively on that, and that means that I am not going to work as an agent for the present. And maybe it also means that we will move somewhere different, because I have very many memories of moments when I felt badly here, and they might make it harder for me to learn how feel better. Do you understand that?”

Christina nods. Then she throws her arms around Helena’s neck – as much as anyone can, lying on their side on a bed. “I don’t ever want you to be feel bad, Mummy,” she says fiercely. “I’m going to help too. And Myka will also help, right, Myka?”

“Absolutely right, Christina,” Myka replies solemnly. 

Christina does a double take, then, with her eyes fixed on Myka and suddenly anxious. “You _will_ come with us, won’t you?”

Helena’s breath hitches. Myka has not expressly-

“Yes, I will.”

Helena exhales. Myka’s hand squeezes her waist again. “Of course I will,” Myka repeats, her voice lower and pitched for Helena’s ears. It fills her eyes with tears and gives her heart permission to continue beating, which it does with almost painful enthusiasm.

“Will we go back to London, then?” Christina asks.

There is a scratching noise outside the door, a propos of nothing, and Myka groans while Helena silently thanks whoever is responsible – there really is only one explanation, but she is glad for the opportunity to pull herself together before answering her daughter’s question. 

“Christina, will you go and put Pete back in his room, please?” Myka asks. As Christina scrambles off the bed and towards the door, Myka adds, “Watch out that he doesn’t sneak in here; we’ll never get him out again.” Then she sighs, realizing that this is a bit too much to ask of an eight-year-old. “Hang on, I’ll help. You open the door, I’ll catch him.”

Helena watches the two of them team up to overcome a ferret, and bites back tears yet again – really, it is exasperating how prone she is to crying, like the silliest, most useless kind of romance novel heroine. Then again, she remembers Steve’s explanations of the physiological aftereffects of going through traumatic events – he did say that crying was one way for the human body to release tension; maybe tonight is proof of that. It is certainly something to look into further, Helena resolves.

“I swear that ferret should be renamed Houdini,” Myka sighs when she’s back in bed, snuggled in behind Helena just as Christina is snuggled in in front of her mother. 

“Is Mister Houdini still famous, then?” Christina asks, wide-eyed.

“Oh definitely,” Myka replies. “There have been a few famous magicians and escape artists since then, but he’s definitely still a household name – a name people immediately recognize,” she adds as explanation. 

“I saw him in London right before I left,” Christina tells her solemnly. “I was so afraid that he wouldn’t escape from his water box. Aunt Jane said I was too young to see this kind of thing,” she adds, “but I wanted so much to go before I visited Uncle Gerard and Aunt Mareille.”

“And so we went,” Helena expands the story, “even though Aunt Jane _also_ disapproved of taking a child to the Alhambra Theatre.” She rolls her eyes with an exasperated huff and adds, “But then what did Aunt Jane not disapprove of.” Christina’s delighted giggle is music in her ears.

“She was very strict,” Christina says in a stage whisper and with a face that is belying her mirth. Then she does turn serious. “But, Mummy, you haven’t said yet: are we going back to London?”

Helena sighs again, but sadly, and Myka places her hand at Helena’s waist again for silent support. It is light, that touch, and warm, and reassuring. It reminds Helena that Myka is aware of what she, Helena, is pondering, and is offering her support. 

So far, both of Helena’s hypotheses regarding Myka are holding up to scrutiny.

“Probably not, love,” Helena tells her daughter, and can hear Myka’s soft exhalation of breath behind her. “We can go visit, of course, but living there would be a challenge because of all the things that have changed since our time, do you see?” 

Christina nods slowly. “Automobiles and airplanes,” she says quietly, “and computers and the internet and freezers and microwaves.” Her forehead is creased in a frown, though, and her eyes are troubled.

“Exactly,” Helena nods, and tries to smooth Christina’s forehead with a kiss. “Here in the United States, we can ask Myka for help when we don’t understand something-” 

“-or Claudia or Steve or Uncle Pete,” Christina nods more assertively this time. Then her face falls again. “There is no one we could ask in London, is there?” Her voice is very small. 

Helena holds her close, and Myka holds Helena close. “No,” Helena sighs as she bends her head over Christina’s, “not anymore.” 

Myka knows, from what Helena’s told her, that the late H.G. Wells has a few grand-nephews and nieces and other remote relatives living in England and other parts of the world, but Helena has never, as far as Myka is aware, expressed any inclination to actively seek them out, and Myka can understand why she doesn’t mention them now – if Christina knew, she would probably insist on contacting them, and if Helena doesn’t want to, that would make for conflict that’s really not necessary right now. 

Helena sounds almost plaintive when she goes on, “But we do have quite a lot of friends here, don’t we?”

“But then why do we need to move?” Christina sounds almost heartbroken, and Myka runs her hand up and down Helena’s side, knowing how that tone of voice has to affect her. 

“We don’t need to,” Helena says after a moment, and her voice is thick. “As I said earlier, a decision has not been made yet, alright?”

“I don’t want to!” And _this_ is the tone of voice that precedes a tantrum, so Myka decides to step in.

“Christina,” she says quickly, “I’ve been meaning to ask you – could you tell me how Steve showed you to breathe?”

Thankfully Christina bites. It takes a few more minutes of persuasion, but then Christina and Myka (and Helena, too, Myka can feel it in the up and down of Helena’s ribcage against her own) are breathing in an easy meditation pattern. As wired up as Christina was, she’s asleep after seven minutes of that. 

“Thank you,” Helena whispers to Myka, and Myka squeezes her hipbone in reply. “I cannot perceive of doing this without you.” She says it lightly, as if it’s no big deal - and maybe it isn’t, not anymore. Or maybe she’s too tired to realize what she just said. Myka doesn’t know exactly, but she’s grateful anyway.

“Well, you don’t have to,” Myka says, keeping her voice light, “so that’s okay.”

“It is staggering how much peace of mind this gives me,” Helena replies, in a voice just as equanimous. Then she shifts in Myka’s arms, snuggling even closer, and suddenly she makes a sound in her throat, as though a thought has come to her. “Geborgenheit,” she whispers. “That’s what Hilde meant.”

“Hm?” Myka hums her question. It sounded… German? Dutch, possibly?

“It’s a German word,” Helena confirms in a low voice, relaxing into Myka’s embrace again. “McShane’s wife Hilde was German, and she tried to explain it to me one evening over dinner. She said it meant taking comfort in another’s arms, another’s protection, like a husband’s, or God’s, so I summarily dismissed the idea,” she adds wryly, “but I think I now know what she meant. When you offered me your shoulder in that taxi cab in Hong Kong, I felt as though nothing in the world could touch me through your words of ‘I’ve got you.’”

Myka nods into Helena’s shoulder. She remembers that ride – and while she’d known that it had been a good feeling for Helena from what Helena had said on the plane, she hadn’t been aware that it had made quite this impact. 

“When Hilde explained it to me,” Helena goes on, “it sounded far too much like giving up one’s agency in favor of letting someone else decide your life – whether husband or god, I did not care; I wanted none of that.” She is silent for a moment. Then her hand finds Myka’s on her hip, and she entwines their fingers and pulls Myka’s arm around her waist. “But now that I have felt your offer of support, your presence with me – I think I understand now why a person would choose this, would cherish the thought of leaning on someone else, of being supported by someone else, if only for a moment.” She huffs a short laugh through her nose. “And I also remember thinking, quite disparagingly, that taken to extremes, when moments become always, it would mean giving up one’s agency, but then life is all about figuring out how much of a good thing still remains a good thing, is it not?”

Myka nods again, certain and happy in the knowledge that Helena will feel it. “Exactly,” she adds. “Every now and then, it’s nice to have someone to lean on. And that doesn’t mean that you’re not strong enough or not independent enough, it just means that you have someone who you can go to for a bit of… I don’t know, support? Compassion? To lay down your load and forget about it for a moment. That goes for me too-” Helena makes another sound at the back of her throat; one of sudden understanding this time, and Myka nods and goes on, “-and that’s what I’ve been trying to say since this whole thing started, you know? Every now and then, I’m gonna want to or need to lean on you too. I’m gonna have those moments when I want to just let go for a bit, or when I… when I can’t handle something,” Myka says, her voice just as low as Helena’s, but very intent. “Helena, I’m here and ready to support you in any way I can, but that’s just it, okay? When… before that stuff with Pete’s mom happened, I was really close to a point where I no longer _could_ , when I was close to breaking myself, and that’s not good for either of us. It’s a give and take, and I need… I’m not-” She breaks off, taking a breath, collecting her thoughts, trying to gauge Helena’s reaction to all this. “Helena, I’m not saying I can’t support you, or offer you my shoulder or whatever you need. What I’m saying is that I have needs of my own, and that I hope that we’ll come to a point that when I need your shoulder, figuratively speaking, I can come to you and you’ll support me too.”

Helena lies in silence for a moment, trying to digest this. Myka has sounded so… earnest, almost desperate. She swallows dryly. “I… I will admit,” she says with difficulty, “that I had not thought about it that way.” She shakes her head at herself. “And that is completely my fault,” she adds, “I _should_ have thought of that. Of course you have needs. Of course you do.” She twists in Myka’s arms until she can look at the younger woman by the night light’s dim luminance. “Of course you do,” she repeats once more. “As the night is my witness, Myka, I am deeply sorry.”

“You do take some things for granted sometimes,” Myka replies, but there is a glint of teasing in her eyes that soothes Helena’s beating heart. “And sometimes you’re a little… um, self-centered – but I can understand that,” she adds quickly, “what with all the stuff you have coming at you. Just… I’ve been trying to tell you that I need support from you, and I haven’t really gotten the idea that you heard me or understood me. And maybe I haven’t communicated well enough, but…” Helena can feel Myka take a deep breath, and tries to relax her fingers, which have started to clench tightly around Myka’s hand. “Let’s just… let’s just go forward from here, okay? I mean I do see that you’re going forward, and that was my main gripe, so… let’s just… let’s just leave the past in the past, and go on from where we’re standing.”

“But, Myka,” Helena protests with a frown, “I do not want to arrive at the same point again. I’m beginning to understand how desperate you must have felt, and I would do anything to prevent that from ever happening again.” And if the thought of Myka being unable to support her causes Helena’s lungs to constrict, that is just something she, Helena, needs to work through, because – she understands this now – that is exactly what Myka means. Also, and Helena almost blinks at the sudden realization, _that_ would be the kind of dependency she so viscerally shies away from. Myka’s request is not unreasonable; it is human, and to demand that she rescind it, that she be there whenever, however Helena needs her regardless of the state she herself is in, would be to demand inhuman strength from her. Before she can wrap her thoughts around giving voice to this, though, Myka is already going on.

“So listen to me,” Myka says, unaware of Helena’s epiphany and just as intently as before. “Listen to me when I tell you something, and work with me on how to fix it. If this has any chance of working, it’s got to be an equal partnership. Even with all your issues, which I don’t want to belittle or dismiss – I know you have stuff to work through, and that is important. And it’s totally valid, from where I stand, when I tell you I need something and you say you’re too tired, or too hung up on other stuff or whatever, to consider it right then. But I want my needs to not be forgotten or dismissed, okay? I don’t want ‘right then’ to become ‘at all.’ And…” she closes her eyes for a moment, but even so Helena can see how conflicted she is. She keeps her silence with, literally, bated breath. After another deep inhalation, Myka continues, “And when you need me and tell me that you do, and I can’t… I’ll always try, okay, but if I really, really can’t handle it, then I’ll tell you, and I won’t forget or dismiss it either, but I need to… I need to know that I can do that. That I can tell you I can’t, not right then, without having to worry about-” she breaks off, but Helena has an idea of what the rest of the sentence would have been. 

“-me trying to start the next ice age?” she tries to joke, but it falls flat – Myka flinches. “My apologies,” Helena offers quietly. “But that is the general thrust of it, is it not?”

Myka inhales. “Yeah,” she says, with a long release of breath. Then she laughs at herself. “Which is really stupid. I mean I’m _know_ you’re not in that place anymore.”

The way she says it, though, it’s enough of a question that Helena doubts the claim of ‘know’. “I am not,” she says therefore. “I most assuredly am not. I…” she shrugs, not in dismissal, but out of her disability to express properly what she feels. “I don’t know how I would react if that was your response,” she admits, “but I think I…” she huffs a laugh and shakes her head, “well, no, I am _not_ quite beyond the point of utter breakdowns as we have seen, but I do not think one would occur if you told me ‘not right now’.” She tilts her head questioningly. “Would that be enough for you to go forward on?” 

It is not the widest nor most soundly built bridge that ever crossed a metaphorical chasm, but it is one that they are building together, side by side, and for that, it is worth more to Helena than any grand structure of architecture. It does not matter, she realizes, that the ground they are walking on – metaphorically – is not firm and stable, that they are both feeling their way into this. What matters is that they are walking it together, with the same goal in mind. She has asked Myka if that is enough for her to go forward on, but right in this moment, Helena realizes that for her, the answer is yes, and of all the sudden insights of tonight, this one shines brightest. 

Myka ponders Helena’s question for a moment. Then she shrugs, too. “I guess,” she says, and while only seconds before, her vagueness would not have been enough for Helena, it is now, especially when Myka goes on, “I mean we’ll see, right? I do feel better even now already, because now I know you’ve been listening, and I know you’ve been dealing with your stuff. So we’re not in the same situation anymore, and expecting the same problems to happen again would be stupid.” Helena snorts a laugh at how flat-out Myka states that, then presses her lips together and casts a guilty glance behind her where, thankfully, Christina is still sleeping. “We’ll probably run into others,” Myka continues wryly, “because I sure as hell am not very experienced with relationships either, but I do feel more confident now than I did a few weeks ago.” There is an utterly charming smile on her face – not large, not beaming, a little hesitant, even. But there is confidence in it, and anticipation, even excitement, about going forward. It mirrors Helena’s emotions so closely that it takes her breath away.

Helena leans closer, but hesitates when she remembers- “I would like to kiss you,” she says. “Would you be amenable to that?”

Myka’s smile brightens considerably at that, and when she nods, at this distance, it is close enough to cause her curls to tickle Helena’s forehead. 

Their kiss is short and sweet, promise and reassurance in one. Helena breaks away after all too brief a moment, but there is Christina’s warmth behind her, and neither of them will be served well by stoking fires that cannot be indulged tonight. “More of that at a later date,” she promises Myka and herself. 

“I’ll hold you to that, Wells.”


	20. Chapter 20

“You what?” Myka stares at Helena in disbelief. 

“Oh, she did,” Angela says laughingly. “Punched him out right there and then.” She mimes an uppercut, complete with sound effects upon impact. 

They’re sitting in their new living room, in their new home in Cambridge, Massachusetts – a bit smaller, and without much of a yard, but no less cozy than the one in Univille. Angela is a new friend of Helena’s, who Helena met at the local makerspace. Claudia had apparently not been wrong about sexist assholes populating these places, and Helena had shown little patience with that. Her story is wild, but, Myka has to admit, not out of character. 

“So let me get this straight,” Myka tries to make sense of what she’s hearing. “First you rile him up when he tries to patronize you, then you show him up at the whiteboard, and _then_ you punch him when he gets his hands on you?”

Helena considers her words, then nods. “That is an acceptable summary,” she says with dignity. 

Myka snorts out a laugh. “Well, good on you,” she says. 

“And then,” Angela cuts in, “then she says she’s gonna buy the makerspace out from under their asses and kick ‘em out. And that’s where I thought ‘whoa, lady, you got some good ideas there, let’s talk about ‘em together.’”

And that is, apparently, why Angela sits here with them today. Oh, she’s been here before – makerspace friendship, and one of her kids is in Christina’s class. Inasmuch as they’ve made friends – this _is_ New England, and they’ve barely lived two months here – Angela is one of them.

“Are you for real?” Myka turns from Angela to Helena. “Is she for re- are _you_ for real? Are you seriously going to buy that place?”

“Angela has a better idea, she told me on our way here,” Helena says demurely. “And since her ideas are typically quite favorable, I am, as they say, all ears for this one.”

Angela shakes her close-cropped head at her. “You’re too much sometimes, you know that? Not just too British, but just…” she flaps a hand, “just too much in general. But anyway,” she grins and sits forward on the sofa, “here’s what I think.” She spreads out her hands and her face turns serious, but her dark eyes sparkle with intensity. “Don’t buy that shack – build a new one. One for women only. And not in the suburbs, for the Sharons and Debbies and all the other white middle-class moms. Build it where people are poor. Build it where community centers have closed. Build it where kids don’t know where else to go. Don’t build up Cambridgeport further; go to Area Four, Newtone Court, Washington Elms.” She leans back and drops her arms. “Really _build_ something, you know?”

Myka finds herself nodding along. It makes sense. Cambridge isn’t Detroit or Los Angeles, of course, but there are marginalized communities here just like they are everywhere. 

“And hey, don’t take this the wrong way, okay,” Angela goes on, “but the best thing you can do if you really want to lift people up is get them on board with the decision-making. Don’t just waltz your white British self in there with your money and your accent and your ideas of how to do things. Make this a thing for everyone. I mean I’m not sure if that’s what you had in mind,” she admits with a grin, “but if you’re about more than just getting back at Randy; if you’re about more than just ‘I wanna have a makerspace ‘cause I got the dough’; if you’re about doing a good thing for other women, go and make this a good thing for those women who rarely have good things happen to them. The Sharons and Debbies of this world don’t need a makerspace – it’s people in the ‘hood who do. And I’m taking it as a good sign that none of y’all haven’t cut me off yet,” she adds. 

“Maybe I’m too British for that,” Helena suggest. 

“Nah, not you. Not Hells Wells,” Angela laughs. 

“H- _Hells Wells?!_ ” Myka splutters. 

“She punched that guy’s lights out,” Angela says, pointing a finger with a very bright red fingernail – short, but really, really red. “Laid him out sweet as pie. Didn’t even break a sweat. That deserves a badass nickname.”

Helena looks down at her folded hands modestly, and Myka laughs out loud. 

They’re getting there. 

Christina likes her new school better than the one in Univille, but truth to tell, it probably helped that they arrived in the week leading up to Halloween, which meant Helena diving into Halloween prop making in a major way, impressing neighbors and class mates alike with remote-controlled moving skeletons. Five days after moving into the house, Christina had encountered a stray cat youngster in the backyard and, after checking for owner’s tags, microchips, lost-cat flyers had all come up empty, had adopted him. Helena, with great distaste, had tolerated the cat on two conditions: one, that he be neutered and two, that ‘the urchin’ be called Dickens; proving once again that there was barely anything that she would deny Christina even if it was with a lot of grumping and snarking. Granted, the cat had been half-starved and half-frozen; it would have been utterly inhumane not to at least help him to treatment, but there he was, proud new member of the Bering-and-Wells household. Helena might put all the venom at her disposal in the name ‘Dickens’ whenever she utters it, but Myka has _seen_ her pet the cat when he, inevitably, insists on sitting in her lap when she’s reading.

Myka, for her part, is working part-time at a small local bookstore (which also boasts a cat, by the name of Mister Tiddles) and has started research on her novel, a thought that drowns out everything whenever she dwells on it, it’s so big and new and breathtaking. She could even do NaNoWriMo, Myka has thought more than once, even if November has already started. Yes, okay, so a novel isn’t completed in a _month_ , but… it would be a start, yes? A goal, a challenge. Fifty thousand words about a gruesome murder and the brilliant (and female) private investigator who’ll solve it, on the page, to then tame and go over and forge into something…

Big, and new, and breathtaking.

And Helena? Helena’s been seeing Doctor Cho – who happens to live in Boston – twice a week, has been visiting the makerspace on Massachusetts Avenue almost daily, has run into another expat – Sophie – at a tea shop and hasn’t stopped talking about _finally_ having someone who understands being British in the US (Myka will typically grin and roll her eyes at that, but she’s happy that Helena is making friends).

Tracy has visited once, and has had her pants charmed off (well, not literally, thank god, but still) by both Helena and Christina. There’s been a stolen exchange in the kitchen hallway, ‘are things better now?' – ‘much.’, and that had been that. 

Pete has visited with his mom, who’d wanted to thank Helena and Myka personally for saving her life. Myka’s been talking with Pete at least once a week on Skype, and they’ve been texting each other way more than daily. Yes, none of that comes close to a Pete-hug, but…

She’s sleeping in the same bed as Helena almost every night. And quite frankly, that’s a bit more welcome than Pete’s hugs, however nice they are. 

Claudia has visited twice, and Myka knows that if Helena goes through with any of her makerspace ideas, Claudia will be in the thick of that if there is any way she can be. On her last visit, Claudia has taken great pains to assure Helena (and, by proxy, Myka, who can’t help but worry about these things) that the two new agents the Warehouse has hired are taking things well, all things considered, and have proven themselves good additions to the team. There are even rumors that the regents have green-lighted hiring two more. Claudia hadn’t said anything along the lines of “so there’s enough people around and I can come and visit here more often”, but she didn’t have to; both Myka and Helena understood the implications. 

The three of them, Myka, Helena and Christina, will be in Univille for Thanksgiving, because frankly Myka has no intention to introduce the two of them to her ~~father~~ family at this point, no matter how much Tracy whines. Also, they all miss the noise and chaos and familiarity of a big dinner at the B&B. If Christina has any trouble adjusting, that’s the cause – their immediate family (as in, the people who are always around) has shrunk, from seven people to three. Yes, there’s Dickens the cat, and yes, Christina has made new friends, and yes, her body is finally done adapting its immune system, but feeling at home in Cambridge will probably take a while yet. And while Myka worries that visiting with the Warehouse family will remind Christina of what she’s missing, both Helena and Tracy (and the two of them agreeing was _weird_ ) said that the trip would show Christina that while the Warehouse family still existed to be visited, it was also quite a slug, and that’s why it didn’t happen all that often. 

Myka is willing to give that line of argument a try, without actually _knowing_ if it’ll work, and that’s new, too.

The two new agents, Leah and Srini, will be there for Thanksgiving; Joshua is flying in from Switzerland; Pete’s mom and sister will be there, in exchange for Pete spending Christmas in Buffalo; and of course Artie, Steve and Leena will be there. Jane, during her visit with the Bering-and-Wells household when all of this had been organized and agreed upon, had joked that they needed Kosan and Mrs. Frederic to complete the set. At those words, Pete’s cookie had dropped from his gaping mouth until she’d started laughing at him.

Christmas will be spent in England – the snow in Massachusetts right now is barely two inches deep and already Helena’s had too much of it, stating loudly that hopefully, England will be its usual verdant self. Christina, of course, loves the snow, which means that Helena, of course, grumps even louder about it when Christina is within earshot, until the two of them dissolve in giggles. 

Helena Wells can _giggle_. 

That is another thought that almost doesn’t fit into Myka’s mind. 

Giggle. Like, legit giggle-fits with an eight-year-old. Helena “Giggle” Wells.

Every time Myka thinks she couldn’t love these two more, something like that will happen and she’ll realize that saying something like ‘I couldn’t love you more’ is nonsense; love literally grows every day, every minute. That knowledge is new, and big, and breathtaking, too.

Among all of this; among homework for an eight-year-old who’s missed pretty much all of what’s considered standard in the US curriculum, among taking care of a household alongside someone who’d rather ‘improve’ a robo-vac instead of actually vacuuming, among juggling her part-time job and crime novel research, Myka has been tackling her issues. Together with Helena (and, by proxy, Doctor Cho), she’s been getting better about setting limits, Helena’s getting better at recognizing that Myka is a person who has limits and flaws, and they both have been getting better at that whole partnership and talking things out thing. It’s slow going, given both Myka’s and Helena’s reluctance to acknowledge that and when they’re not perfect. And that’s another reason why Myka doesn’t want to be in Colorado, in particular near her father, over Thanksgiving – she knows it’d be too much, all told. She’s not there yet. It’s when she tells Tracy _that_ that Tracy finally stops nagging her. 

Since Tracy’s visit they’ve been skyping at least once a week, too, about everything and anything. Myka has learned that Tracy’s met a guy called Kevin and is head over heels; Tracy is elated that Myka finally has time for ‘normal stuff like this’ as she calls it; Skype calls, visits, planned and scheduled time together. 

Myka can’t disagree. A structured day, a plannable week, knowing what her schedule holds throughout the next month – Myka has missed this, more than she’d been aware. Oh, she misses retrievals, the heady excitement of the hunt, the ego boost that comes with solving puzzles and saving the day (an expression that Helena uses as often as she can fit it into a conversation), the snap decisions, all of it. Well, okay, not Pete’s eating and sleeping habits, and not the sometimes seemingly endless travel (you know you travel too much when _flying_ to Chicago instead of driving there seems like a step up), and certainly not the life-or-death moments. So it evens out, for now definitely. 

For now, they’re getting there, and Myka is breathing more freely than she has since Helena came clean before the regents.

For now, Myka is happy. When they moved in, she and Helena maintained their separate bedrooms, but there’s barely been a night in which they haven’t slept in the same bed (except for half a week when a massive head cold had Myka snore like a chainsaw, much to their mutual dismay). Christina has more or less stopped wanting to share the bed with them and now favors her own dragon-themed bedroom again. So, most nights Helena is nothing more than an arm’s reach away. She still won’t sleep in Myka’s arms for fear of dreaming of the bronze, and while that pains Myka, it’s an empathetic pain – she understands that fear, and commiserates. And while that fear keeps Helena from sleeping in her arms, it doesn’t keep her out of Myka’s arms when they’re awake. On the contrary, snuggling has become a constant – in bed, on the couch, in the kitchen, a quick hug goodbye on the stairs whenever one of them leaves the house by themselves; something Myka wouldn’t have anticipated but welcomes nevertheless.

And then Helena brings her British friend Sophie home one afternoon shortly before Christmas, and Myka is suddenly and emphatically _not_ happy anymore. 

Her hand is twisting Sophie’s arm up behind the woman’s back, and her other hand is clamped around Sophie’s wrist, struggling to get that under control, too. 

They’re not even out of the mudroom yet. It’s a good thing it’s a Friday and Christina has karate class after school so the kid isn’t here to witness this.

“And here I thought I was the only one you would attack on sight,” Helena says in tones half amused, half mockingly jealous. 

“What are you even-” Myka breaks off, shakes her head and grits her teeth. “Helena, this is Katherine Clive, notorious grifter, Number 38 on Interpol’s most wanted list, also known as Annie Croy and So-”

“Sophie Deveraux,” Helena says with a sigh. “Yes, I _know_ , Myka.”

“ _Thirty-eight?_ ” Katherine Clive, or Sophie Deveraux, or whatever name she chooses to go by, says over her, sounding more upset about that than about the fact that she’s in an arm lock. “I should be up there in the top ten at the very least.”

It’s at this point that Myka decides to give up. Letting go of Sophie’s arm and wrist, she takes a step back and turns to Helena. “You knew?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Helena nods emphatically. “Now can we please get out of this ice trap and into the house proper? I’m freezing.”

Myka has to concede that point; it’s been miserably cold for five days in a row, and the mudroom does have the worst insulation of the whole house. She takes another step back and crosses her arms. “I’m keeping my eyes on you,” she tells Sophie in no uncertain terms. 

“While I undress?” Sophie gives back, starting to unwrap her scarf. “Intriguing. Not that I’m very much into that, but-”

“Fine!” Myka flips up her arms, then points at Helena. “ _Your_ responsibility, anything that she does. Just so we’re clear. I need to go pick up Tracy from the airport anyway.” And she turns around and stalks into the hallway where she waits for her turn in the mudroom.

It’s not really time yet to head towards Logan, but if Helena insists on bringing a known grifter home, _and_ on the day that Tracy’s flying in, _she_ can deal with her. Myka drums her fingers on the steering wheel as she sits in traffic on McGrath Highway. This Sophie or whatever her name might be even had the gall to complain about her placement on Interpol’s list! Yes, for the past six weeks, Myka’s been hearing about how Sophie has divulged her sources for powdered custard and proper loose leaf tea and how nice it is to speak with someone not only from England, but from London itself. Apparently, in all that speaking, one way or another, Helena has learned that Sophie is a crook, and has not seen fit to act on it, much less tell Myka about that tiny, insignificant bit. 

Myka is still angry when she pulls into the arrivals’ short-term parking. There had been an accident right in front of the State Police department at Charles River Dam that totally ate up the head start she had, and now a quick glance at her phone tells her Tracy’s plane has already landed. She texts Tracy her position and sinks back into the seat, staring out of the window with a huffed sigh. 

It’s December 21, they’re flying out to London in two days, and she isn’t quite sure if Tracy is here to house-, ferret-, and cat-sit (which is the official reason), or in a last-minute attempt to change Myka’s mind about spending Christmas with their parents yet again. It’s not that Myka isn’t glad to be seeing her sister twice in as many months, it’s just… odd. New. Then again, Tracy loves Christina, loves Helena, loves the house, loves being so close to a major city… She probably loves Logan International, Myka thinks with a snort. Myka would be happy to fly out of Colorado Springs any day, but then the grass _is_ always greener, isn’t it.

There’s a knock on Myka’s passenger window and her head snaps around to see Tracy all bundled up and with the biggest grin on her face. Myka jumps out of the car, races around it, and hugs her sister tightly, setting aside any worries about Europe’s top thirty-eighth grifter in her home. She knows that Helena can handle it; knows that Helena wouldn’t bring anyone home she didn’t trust, whatever she’s basing that trust on.

Halfway through their drive home, though, Myka’s phone rings. It’s Helena’s number on the display, but Sophie’s voice coming from the car speakers, and what she says almost stops Myka’s heart.

Christina is missing.


	21. Chapter 21

Helena sighs as the door shuts behind Myka, then turns to Sophie with an apologetic smile. “I’m dreadfully sorry,” she says, gesturing Sophie ahead of her down the hallway. “I’ll make us some tea – Christina will be home in half an hour, but for now, let’s enjoy the peace, shall we?”

Sophie rubs her wrist, but smiles as she nods. “Tea sounds heavenly,” she replies. “On the condition that it’s-”

“Loose leaf? Of course it is. I bought a first flush Sakhira the other day that you have to drink to believe.” Helena ushers Sophie towards the couch and recedes into the kitchen, where the water boiler – a lavish contraption that has a temperature dial – awaits. 

“So how come your partner knows Interpol’s Most Wanted list?” Sophie asks from the living room. “If I may ask,” she adds, but Helena knows Sophie’s curiosity will not be denied by an evasion. 

“She used to work for the Secret Service,” Helena answers, therefore. It is a simple truth, and by now she knows, in any case, that Sophie is incredibly good at reading people; the probability is high that Sophie knows this already. Helena sets the boiler to the right temperature and starts it, then she picks up the teapot and the box of Sakhira – it is already almost empty; the tea is that stunning.

She can see Sophie nod – kitchen and living room are connected by an open doorway. “I though as much,” Sophie says, confirming Helena’s hypothesis. “If you’ve been at the receiving end of federal agent detention practices, you recognize their style. It’s quite distinct. As a matter of fact-” she stops, then bends down to where Helena cannot see her anymore. Presently there are a few delighted cooing noises, then Sophie’s head reappears, and there is a small cat in her hands – Dickens. Helena sighs and measures out tea leaves into the strainer that will sit in the teapot. “Hello, little fellow,” Sophie croons, and Dickens, always able to spot a person he can wrap around his outsized paws, purrs loudly. Sophie coos and coddles the feline youngster, then turns back to Helena. “As I was saying, European police detaining methods get more similar to American ones every year. I’m sure they’re exchanging notes, going on the same kind of trainings or whatever.” She scoffs in cutesy tones, talking to Dickens again. “Not that it fools us, right, little fellow?” Again, she turns her face towards the kitchen. “An introduction seems in order,” she says, head tilted expectantly and Dickens held up next to it. 

“This,” Helena sighs, “is Dickens.” Just as she has no love for the author, she has no love for this furry usurper of a child’s heart. Then she corrects herself – honesty in all things; it’s a task Doctor Cho has set her. She _used to have_ no love for the kitten. He has grown on her, it is as simple as that. His little body’s warmth in her lap is surprisingly soothing when she reads, and the fact that he is trustful enough to fall asleep on her is hard to reward with hostility.

“Dickens?!” Sophie laughs out loud. “H.G. Wells has a cat named _Dickens_?”

“That might just be the case,” Helena replies with a smirk. She has danced around revealing her true identity to Sophie – she does not have a One at present, but she does not trust Sophie enough yet to reveal the truth about the Warehouse and its contents to her. Sophie is a grifter, after all, and even though she trusts Helena enough to reveal that about herself, the scope surely is a different one when it comes to an enormous place full of some of the most valuable, dangerous, and unique things the world has ever seen.

“What’s next, a terrarium full of lizards you call Morlocks?” Sophie jokes.

The water boiler switches off and Helena pours the water over the tea leaves. Closing her eyes, she allows herself a moment to enjoy the scent that rises from the pot, then arranges pot, two cups, and milk and sugar on a tray that she carries to the living room. “Not yet,” she smiles as she sets the tray down on the coffee table, “but to hear my daughter, it is only a question of time. They apparently have a stick insect in the classroom,” she divulges with a mixture of indulgence and disbelief.

“A stick insect?” Sophie’s voice is sheer incredulousness. “But where’s the cuddliness in that?” She tickles Dickens’ cheeks, which the young cat seems to love – his purr is thunderous, and his forepaws stomp heavily on Sophie’s thighs. 

“Cuddliness seems not to be the purpose,” Helena concedes. 

They talk about more things both inconsequential and not – Sophie is as skilled a listener as she is a raconteuse – until Helena’s eyes fall onto the clock on the mantelpiece. “Christina should be home any minute,” she says, feeling oddly nervous. Christina and Sophie have not met yet, and Helena finds herself hoping that Christina will approve of the friend she has made. “We share the duty of picking up our children with Angela who lives two blocks east – her daughter is in Christina’s class and they’re fast friends by now.”

“And today is Angela’s turn?”

Helena nods. “Which is why I’ve chosen this day to invite you – less hassle.”

“I do feel honored that you’ve brought me into your home,” Sophie says. “Even though the introduction to Myka could have gone better.”

Helena rolls her eyes. “Of all the things I imagined going wrong in that encounter, I had not envisioned that.”

Sophie laughs and waves her hand. “It doesn’t matter,” she says. “I’m sure she can’t be all that… strict, living with you.”

And that is why Helena cherishes Sophie’s friendship. It is easy to reveal one’s faults to a self-declared rogue – she has not felt judged by Sophie at any point, no matter what she has told her. And Sophie’s insights are… refreshingly different. And yet they reveal a moral compass that closely enough matches Helena’s values that Helena has not hesitated to invite Sophie here when the opportunity arose. “She is not,” Helena replies with a small, fond smile. Myka will come around to Sophie, she is sure of it. “However, she sometimes needs a little time to conceive of the idea that those we call crooks are not all evil.”

“Law enforcement,” Sophie sighs. “It’s what they’re taught. It isn’t easy to overcome that.” 

Helena glances at the watch again and frowns. It is only three minutes after the time, and traffic might explain delays of up to fifteen at this time of day, but typically Angela is good at letting her know about that. “Would you mind awfully if I retrieved my phone?” she asks Sophie with an imploring look. “I’d like to check up on tonight’s traffic status.”

“Of course!” Sophie ushers her off the couch with a flutter of her hands.

The moment Helena takes her phone from its place near the door, there is a call from Angela. “Yes?” Helena answers it. 

“Helena!” Angela gasps and the alarm in her voice is clearly transmitted through the phone. “Did you pick them up?”

“No,” Helena replies, her knees growing weak. From the corner of her eyes, she sees Sophie rise from the couch and walk towards her. “And neither has Myka,” she thinks to add. She swallows dryly, trying hard not to panic. 

Angela’s next words put paid to that effort. “They’re not here! Oh my god, they’re not-” her voice rises and flips, then she catches herself and takes a deep breath. “Okay, Helena, let’s not… let’s not panic. Imma go find the instructor, and you check that GPS thing you said Christina has on her, okay?” 

Helena cannot bring her vocal chords and mouth to form words. 

“Helena? Are you okay?”

A gentle hand takes the phone from Helena’s unresisting hand. “Hello,” she hears Sophie say, “this is Sophie – I’m a friend of Helena’s. She’s a bit… out of it at the moment. Can I help?”

Helena’s hands drop to her sides and her back hits the wall. On some level, Sophie’s words register as she slides down to the floor, but the majority of her thoughts is filled with the fact that her daughter is not where she is supposed to be. The thought grows and spreads, until her lungs are full of it and not breath, until her heart is hammering in her ears, until her sight grows dim. 

Someone is crouching in front of her. “Helena?” The voice is not Myka’s, for all that it carries a lot of concern. “Helena, are you alright?” Received pronunciation, London-style. Sophie, Helena dimly remembers.

A string of instructions flutters through Helena’s mind – Steve’s voice, telling her how to breathe. Helena tries valiantly, but her body does not heed her. The shape that is Sophie sits back and busies herself with Helena’s phone, placing two calls in short order. Then Sophie’s voice is closer again, speaking to Helena. “Myka is on her way, and I’ve got the best people in the world out looking for Christina. They’ll find her before you know it; don’t doubt that for a minute. It’ll all be alright, I promise.”

Helena barely registers the words. Myka would never have said that, part of her thinks. Myka does not promise something she cannot deliver, but Sophie is not Myka; Sophie is a grifter – it is her modus operandi to promise things regardless, to make her lies sound ever so convincing. 

It seems like only moments before Myka is there, Tracy in tow. Tracy keeps her distance and tugs Sophie back towards the living room as well. Helena is grateful for that; she is barely holding it together, and would rather that only Myka witness that. 

Myka’s voice, even if Helena cannot parse her words, and Myka’s presence soothe Helena’s nerves slightly, to the point that she realizes a small warm bundle pressed into her hip. Dickens is purring as loudly as she has ever heard him, and that is the realization that sets off Helena’s panic in earnest. She cannot hear Myka’s voice anymore, much less Steve’s instructions on how to breathe. She cannot see Myka’s face anymore and the worry in her eyes – all she can see is visions of what might be happening to Christina this very moment. Abducted, tortured, slain – caught up in a robbery and cast aside like a lifeless doll, bleeding out on the asphalt somewhere – the scenarios dance before Helena’s eyes like so many horrible movies until they coalesce with her memories of Gerard and Mareille’s Paris apartment burning, burning-

She can hear the doorbell ring in the distance, and then fast steps coming closer, and then her daughter’s voice, hesitant and fearful and blessedly close by, “Mummy?”

Helena surges forward, wraps her arms around Christina, and holds on for dear life. 

A few hours later, Helena looks up to see Tracy sitting on the couch opposite her. She cranes her head this way and that, but no one else is to be seen. In her lap, Dickens yawns and stretches, irritated to have been jostled. Then he starts to purr and knead her knee.

“Christina’s asleep in bed, and Myka’s in the bathroom.” Tracy sighs and adds, “And has been for the last thirty-five minutes. My guess is she’s crying.” She purses her lips. “She’s never been good at letting other people see that, but she’s not as good at fooling me as she thinks she is.”

Helena begins to say something, but her voice cracks. Tracy nods towards the coffee table and Helena sees a glass of water. Drinking from it helps clear her thoughts and smooth her throat. “Crying?” she says again, and this time it comes out. 

“Yup,” Tracy nods. “She was scared pretty badly, just like you.” She hesitates slightly before adding, “But unlike you, she’s alone with her fear.” Her tone is free of accusation, but her words hit Helena nevertheless. 

Myka was scared. So badly she is hiding herself away even now. Myka is crying in the bathroom. Myka is alone with her fear. 

Like a picture suddenly coming into focus, Helena realizes that this is what Myka has been trying to tell her all along – that there will be times when Myka needs her. 

She puts the glass of water back on the table and rises from the couch. “Thank you for telling me,” she says, “and thank you for your help.” 

Tracy simply nods. “Anytime.”

Helena can feel the aftereffects of adrenaline having flooded her body – her knees are shaky as she walks towards the bathroom, and her shirt has patches of sweat-soaked dampness. But she is determined, and that makes it easy to ignore her momentary frailness. She gives a soft knock before calling out, “Myka? It’s me, Helena,” and entering – thank goodness Myka has not locked the door. 

Myka is in the far corner, hunkered down between the foot end of the bathtub and the wall – Helena can only see her calves and the hands clenched between them. 

Helena kneels down in front of her and touches Myka’s hands. They are icy, to the point where Myka’s skin is bluish white. 

Myka does not look up at the touch, nor when Helena says her name again. Myka stares straight ahead, tears running down her cheeks unchecked. 

Helena’s heart aches to see Myka like this, and she briefly touches on the thought that Myka has seen her like this several times now – like this and worse. Yet Helena has never seen Myka come undone. For a moment, the sight scares her. Myka is her pillar of strength, the indomitable, unflappable, capable one, the one who can and will fix all things, and here she sits, utterly defeated. For a moment, Helena is petrified. Then warmth rushes through her. Her loved one is hurting, and Helena has the means to help. 

She inserts herself next to Myka and wraps an arm around her shoulder, pulls her close with her other arm – Myka leans into her without resistance, but without reaction either. She is still quiet, eerily so, the only motion her tears running down and down her cheeks. 

“It’s alright,” Helena says, her voice low and pitched for Myka’s ears only. “It’s alright, my love. I’ve got you.”

The words work their magic on Myka as they did on Helena, back in Hong Kong. A shudder runs through Myka’s whole body, and she turns her head to bury it in the crook of Helena’s neck. The shudder persists, turns into silent sobs that shake Myka’s whole body and Helena’s with it. Helena keeps her arms around Myka’s shoulders and her mouth close to Myka’s ear, crooning reassurance and invocations of safeness and love. Myka’s crying is small; a soundless, hunched aching, curled in on itself as tightly as a clenched fist, designed to be contained and hidden. Helena’s heart aches to see it, to realize the reason behind the design. Myka’s crying is meant to evade detection, meant to be solitary; result of a life lived without much consolation, Helena is certain. She vows to herself that that part of Myka’s life is over. Her arms and words never falter, until the storm of weeping subsides and Myka’s fingers release their hold on Helena’s arms. Helena will have bruises come the morning, but she does not mind. 

Another shudder runs through Myka, and she burrows more closely into Helena’s arms. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, “I’m so so sorry.”

“Whatever for?” Helena wonders, shaking her head.

“For…” Myka sniffs and interrupts herself to search for a tissue. Helena pulls back a little to allow for it, but takes great care never to lose contact. When Myka blows her nose, the snort noisy and not at all lady-like, it makes Helena’s heart grow, as the story goes, three sizes. “For this,” Myka says wetly and with a weak gesture around the bathroom. “For falling apart like this. While you’re in the middle of a panic attack.”

“Which I am clearly no longer, as we can both agree,” Helena corrects mildly. “Is this not what you meant, back then?” She smiles at Myka even though Myka is currently looking everywhere but at her. “Is this not exactly the kind of partnership you were talking about?” She detaches one hand and smooths a stray curl back behind Myka’s ear, then cups Myka’s cheek until Myka looks at her. “You have just as much right and reason to be scared for Christina as I do. If anyone is sorry for falling apart, that would be me, alright?” 

“But I-” Myka begins to protest, but Helena’s thumb across her lips stops her. 

“No buts,” Helena smiles as she intones one of Myka’s phrases. Then she grows serious again. “No buts,” she repeats earnestly. “I do understand you now. I understand that you have needs just like I do, up to and including the need to fall apart from fear, and the need to be held while you do. Tonight has shown quite clearly that I cannot promise to be there for you whenever you need me,” she says with a self-deprecating sigh, “but I can and do promise to be there for you whenever I can. And I can and do promise to strive to be there often – not just tonight. I understand now, Myka, and I’m sorry it needed such a hard lesson for me to learn this.”

Myka’s lip trembles under Helena’s thumb, and her eyes are full again. Her eyelids flutter, and the tears spill over, but Helena takes heart in how this time, Myka does not hide her face, does not hide her tears. “I’m sorry that tonight happened,” Myka whispers after a moment. “It was horrible. When I got that phone call – your number, and Sophie’s voice, my-” her voice breaks, and she swallows harshly. “My heart just dropped out of my body,” she goes on. “I don’t know how I got home. I don’t know what I told Tracy, or if I told her anything. I just… I had to get home to you, had to do everything I could to help find Christina, to help you deal.” She sniffs again, and dashes her hand over her cheeks. “When I opened the door, I was… I had all the necessary steps locked into my mind, and I was ready to do whatever it took to get Christina home, but it turned out that Sophie had it all covered.” She smiles slightly. “I guess she is your friend, after all,” she concedes, and adds, “and trustworthy. 

“She told me she’d set her friends onto the case,” Myka goes on with a small sniff and a roll of watery eyes. “Took me a moment to realize that with ‘friends’, she meant Alec Hardison, a hacker so good Claudia will swoon to hear he helped, Parker, the only thief in the world known by a one-word name that’s not a code name, and Elliot Spencer, the most ruthless muscle that there ever was for hire. Except he’s not for hire anymore, Sophie tells me.” Myka’s smile dissolves as she shakes her head. “Actually, I didn’t really want to know. Maybe one day I will, but tonight, when they showed up on our doorstep with Christina and Na’isha, I just wanted to kiss them. Turns out the two of them decided to walk home on their own without telling us, and they both had their phones on mute from school still, so they didn’t hear when Angela tried to call them. That was all.” She sighs and rolls her eyes. “I’m pretty sure they won’t make that mistake again.”

Through gritted teeth, Helena hums her agreement. While she is glad that the situation was such a benign one, so easily solved, she is also glad of the thought it will never happen again. Then she frowns. “Hold on,” she asks, “Na’isha was here?”

Myka’s smile returns. “As was Angela,” she nods. “Don’t worry,” she adds, “they understood. As did Christina, or Tracy and I would never have gotten her into bed.”

Helena blinks as she counts. “That’s… that means nine people have… have witnessed…”

“I’m sorry,” Myka says, and now it is her hand that comes up to stroke Helena’s cheek. “Yeah, they saw. But as I said, they understood. Come to think of it, Elliot was kind of sweet about it, actually. Asked if there was anything he or they could do for you. I don’t recall if he has a kid or kids plural, but he clearly related to you; I could see it in his eyes.” Myka takes a deep breath that ends in another sniff, and pushes herself forwards. “Let’s get off the floor at least,” she murmurs as she pulls up Helena with her. When she is upright, she leaves her arms around Helena and holds her close for a moment. “Thanks for coming after me,” she whispers.

“Whenever I can, I will,” Helena promises. “I do have to divulge, though, that I was sent here. I would not have known to come after you if Tracy hadn’t told me.”

Myka sighs and rolls her eyes. “I can’t even be mad at her,” she says. “I am glad you came, and if she sent you, that means I’m glad she did. Glad she knows me well enough.” She leans her forehead against Helena’s for a moment, and Helena savors the gesture. Then Myka lets go and steps back. “Let’s go out and tell her I’m okay. Set her mind to rest.”

“If you’re sure,” Helena replies, offering a moment longer of reprieve if Myka needs it. 

Myka nods, though, and takes her hand. “I am.”


	22. Epilogue

A paper squawker toots into Myka’s face and she swats it away, then Pete grabs her in a bear hug. “Congratulations, new mom!” he bellows in her ears as he swings her around. 

“Goddamnit, Pete, put me down,” she hisses, looking guiltily around to see if anyone has witnessed this spectacle. 

Of course they have. 

She’s tried to keep this date secret, but somehow, someone – more than someone – got wind of the fact that today was the day that the Middlesex Family and Probate Court would finalize Myka’s adoption of Christina. So when they’d come out of the courtroom, feeling festive and nervous and elated, not just Angela and Na’isha had been there, but the whole Warehouse gang as well, minus the two new agents who, apparently, had been ordered to stay behind and safeguard the Warehouse. Myka shoots a quick thanks to the heavens that Sophie isn’t there, or her friends – she may just about be able to handle the sight of Angela talking to Leena and Na’isha and Christina having a very adult conversation with Steve, but at the idea of Claudia meeting Alec Hardison, her thoughts refuse to cooperate.

Claudia passes out more squawkers, Leena the champagne and sodas, and Steve and Artie some very somber handshakes. Pete’s mom hugs Myka almost as fiercely as her son just did. It’s clear where he gets it from, Myka thinks, but returns the hug. Jane is a good woman. 

Then a voice behind her says, “Congratulations, Agent Bering,” and Myka whirls open-mouthed to see Mrs. Frederic, prim and proper and with a big smile on her face, walk towards her, hand outstretched. 

“Thanks,” she belatedly replies, and shakes the proffered hand. 

“This is a momentous step,” the Caretaker announces. “I’m happy for you. Both of you.” She raises her glass towards Helena, who’s standing with Claudia, Christina and Na’isha. Claudia nudges Helena and points, and Helena, seeing who’s there and what she’s doing, blinks in surprise. Then she smiles and nods and mouths “thank you,” and Myka feels like blinking in surprise. This is the friendliest she’s ever seen Helena act towards Mrs. F – but then today is not a day for conflict. 

“If I could have a moment of your time, though,” Mrs. Frederic says. It most certainly isn’t a question, and Myka wonders if she judged too soon – the Caretaker sounds serious. 

“Of course,” she says, and lets Mrs. Frederic lead the two of them several steps down the corridor. 

“I’ve had several meetings with Miss Wells and Miss Deveraux,” the Caretaker says. 

“…oh,” Myka manages. 

“Quite,” Mrs. Frederic nods. “And while I do think – and the regents agree – that it might pay to consider employing Miss Deveraux and her companions for certain retrievals under certain circumstances, we are also agreed that there should be some… oversight.” The Caretaker delicately clears her throat. “We would like you to act as a liaison with Leverage Incorporated, Agent Bering. Not quite a handler, but more than just a way of keeping in contact, if you get my drift.”

“To make sure they don’t keep the artifacts they find?” Myka asks with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. 

“Oh, I don’t doubt that they will do what we pay them for,” Mrs. Frederic says calmly. “What _is_ in question, at least among some of the regents, is their moral compass. They don’t trust the change of heart Miss Deveraux claims they’ve had.” She looks behind her to where Artie is hesitantly talking with Christina. “Agent Nielsen has had dealings with the team before; dealings which did not go too well. Subsequently, he finds it hard to trust them, especially Mister Ford – have you come across the name?”

Myka sucks in a breath. “Not in connection to Sophie Deveraux and the rest of them,” she admits, “but if Nate Ford is working with them… that’s one hell of a team,” she says. “But… they’re thieves. Criminals. Why would the Warehouse employ people like that?” She shakes her head. “I mean, sure, yeah, we steal some artifacts; I’ve done my share of that. And they’re good at stealing. But do we-” she stops herself. It’s not her place to harangue the Caretaker, is it?

Mrs. Frederic smiles. “Do we really want to stoop to downright employing thieves?” she finishes Myka’s question. “Agent Bering, these are no ordinary criminals. I have met them, and have verified their motives. I trust that we can employ their… unique talents without risking moral compromise.”

“But you still want me to keep an eye on them.”

“Exactly.”

Myka thinks this over for a moment. “How… how much time would I spend on that? I mean I do have a job.” And she’ll hold out on that. She has a job, and her manuscript is coming along nicely even though the last six months have been a whirlwind of notary meetings, court visits, home visits, not to mention Helena buying and setting up a makerspace which, try as she might, Myka had found herself roped into, too. 

“And I fully respect that,” Mrs. Frederic says immediately. “While of course I can’t foresee how often we’ll run into artifacts that call for the team’s special abilities, I don’t think it’ll be more often than once or twice per month. Do you think that would be manageable?”

Again, Myka takes a moment to ponder the proposal, biting her lower lip as she does so. “I suppose,” she says finally. “I mean, they’re based in Boston, so it’s not like I’d have to travel far to meet with them.”

“Exactly,” Mrs. Frederic says again, and reaches out her hand again.

Myka shakes it, again. She isn’t quite sure what she just signed up for, but then the same thought had crossed her mind when she signed Christina’s adoption papers ten minutes ago. 

What she is sure of, as she watches Helena laugh out loud at something Christina has just said to Na’isha, is that she’s up to it. That they’re up to it. That between them, Bering and Wells can change the world, move mountains, pick any star from the sky and hang it on the moon instead. 

Helena catches her eyes then, and smiles brilliantly enough to outshine the sun. She whispers something to Christina, and the child nods and turns and runs towards Myka and barrels into her, wrapping her arms around Myka’s hips and squeezing mightily. Myka throws an apologetic glance at Mrs. Frederic, only to realize that the Caretaker is now in deep conversation with Leena and Angela. Then she kneels down to properly hug her adoptive daughter. 

“I love you, Myka,” the kid says, and Myka doesn’t care if Helena told her to come over and say that. 

“I love you too, Christina,” she says and squeezes just as tightly as Christina just did. “Now let’s go and hug your mom, too.”

“But _you’re_ my mom now,” Christina says, very seriously. “You’re Mom, and Mummy is Mummy.”

Myka blinks, suddenly glad that she’s already kneeling. She’s sure that, if she’d been standing, her knees would have buckled at this statement and all it entails. “Oh… okay,” she says after swallowing dryly. “I guess I’ll have to wrap my head around that from now on.”

“Don’t worry,” Christina says, still very, very serious. “I slipped up, too, when I called you Myka.” She pats Myka’s shoulder magnanimously. “We shall all have to get used to it, won’t we?” she says, sounding so much like her mother Myka has to laugh despite herself. 

“We shall indeed,” she says. She takes Christina’s hand, and together they walk towards Helena. 

-_-_-

“Absolutely not!” 

It is what Helena wants to say. It is sitting on her tongue, waiting behind her teeth, begging her to draw breath and expel the words in a clear, firm statement of what the future will hold. 

But Christina, all of fifteen years old, is looking at her across the dinner table with bright, hopeful eyes, shining with purpose and determination. Behind her, Myka has donned her sphinx expression, the one that is blank, perhaps mildly encouraging, letting no smidgeon of an idea out of what Myka herself thinks about the matter, other than that she will support Helena’s decision. 

A trip out of state. 

Overnight. 

Christina is deeply caught up in the current presidential election. There has been many an evening with heated debates around this very same dinner table, extolling the virtues of various candidates while despairing over the vices of others. Helena has learned a lot about her daughter and her wife (as of three and a half years ago now; the shine has definitely not worn off) in those discussions, but she would not have thought Christina’s ardency extended quite this far. 

The school has arranged for a dozen students to go on a trip to Hempstead, New York, to witness a debate between the two parties’ main candidates – a prize hard to come by, to hear Christina tell it, and she yearns to claim it, that much is very clear. 

“Please, mum,” Christina reiterates quietly. She knows what makes her mother hesitate, that much is also very clear. They have been very open about Helena’s fears in the past five years, following Doctor Cho’s advice in such matters. “It would mean so much to me.”

“I know,” Helena presses out. She swallows, takes a sip of her water, and repeats herself. “I know, my love.” She takes a deep breath. “I’ll just have to deal with it, isn’t that how they say it these days?”

She barely has time to put her glass back down on the table before Christina hangs off her neck in an embrace as fierce as only a fifteen-year-old can give. Behind her, Helena can see Myka beam a wide smile at her. In her wife’s gaze there is a peculiar mix of pride, tenderness and… not worry, exactly, but enormous care and the silent promise to do whatever Helena needs to make it through this particular challenge. It is a message that she knows well, that she has felt herself, even, when Myka reached the final spurt of her novel, when her deadline started to loom, when Myka started questioning the use of any word, the placement of any comma-

Myka’s book is out in the world now, and some day, so will Christina be. Not that the two matters are any more connected than that – the only connection is the one that binds the two women together who are ‘making it happen’, as the expression goes. And far from being chafing or constricting, that connection has given Helena more peace of mind than anything else in her life. 

She catches Myka’s eyes and smiles at her over the head of their daughter. 

-_-_-

“It sits ill with me that Christina spoke with you first,” Helena says quietly. They are sitting on their bed – having abandoned the practice of separate bedrooms nigh on eight years ago – talking about their day as they are wont to do before sleep. “I wish she would have felt comfortable enough to confide in me.”

“Well, she did,” Myka points out, reaching out a reassuring hand. “Just not straight away.”

“I’ve always tried to instill in my daughter the knowledge that she can talk to me about anything and everything, including matters of the heart, or sexual desires.” Helena’s jaw sets stubbornly. Then she replays her words in the silence of her mind and sighs, cupping her forehead in her hand. “I will try to let go of this,” she says with more determination than confidence. “What matters most, after all, is that she was not alone with her doubts, and that she did find her way to me in the end.”

Myka squeezes her hand without a word. 

Helena refrains from shaking her head. Out of so many variants to define one’s sexuality and desires that people can – more or less – freely express these days, that she herself has never shied away from accepting as reality, the one that her daughter seems to identify with is – asexuality. And of all the possible moments to share this with her mother, Christina chose the night before leaving for college. “Possibly I should have been less… vocal in my ‘sex and body positivity’,” Helena muses. Sometimes, the way this time phrases matters still sits weirdly on her tongue. “Maybe I gave off the impression that sex was not just enjoyable, but…” she casts around for a word. 

“Mandatory?” Myka suggests. “That’s what everyone else seems to project, anyway,” she adds when Helena draws an affronted breath. “It’s ubiquitous, it’s quote-unquote normal, it’s what everyone does.” A dry smile flickers across her face. “It was hard to escape when _I_ was a teenager, much less now.” She shrugs, and her smile gains strength and warmth. “Maybe that’s why Christina came to me first. Kindred spirits, or something.”

“But you’re not asexual,” Helena protests. She very, very firmly knows this. 

“Demisexual is what it’s called today,” Myka says with another shrug. “I need to feel a connection with someone before I feel any kind of sexual attraction or desire for them. But unless and until that happens, I’m simply not interested.”

Helena stares at her, slack-jawed. “How have we spent a decade together without me realizing this?” she finally manages. 

Myka snorts and leans closer. Her lips brush Helena’s cheek in a very tender kiss, then she whispers in her ear, “Because you are so very attractive.” The statement is followed by a nip at Helena’s earlobe that would make her knees buckle if they were not already seated. Then Myka sits back and looks at Helena straight on. “Would you like me to further distract you, or do you want to talk about stuff?”

Helena looks at this woman who shares her bed, her house, her life; at this woman who so casually offers not just a fulfillment of desires, but a baring of hearts. There is the slightest of creases between her hazel eyes, a signal of intent and concentration, and the beginnings of laughter lines on the outside of those eyes, a legacy of many a mirthful moment. There are a few strands of grey in Myka’s curls, but truth to tell, all of this is the case for Helena as well. Life with a teenager will do that to anyone, much less to someone who also has to wrangle the Leverage Team and to a mother as traumatized as Helena has been. The idea of her daughter moving out of this house, if only a few miles across town… is a double-edged sword; one that Helena decides she does not care to wield tonight. “I’d have more time with you,” she says in a low, seductive voice. “No more worrying about grasping what few moments of privacy we can.”

“Sex on the kitchen table,” Myka nods, completely straight-faced.

Helena chokes and completely loses the words she wanted to say next. Through her spluttering, she can feel Myka lean closer again. Hands cup her cheeks left and right, and a kiss is pressed to her still-open lips. 

“I love it when I can render you speechless,” Myka says with a grin that Helena deems very inappropriate. 

Instead of figuring out how to overcome said speechlessness, or what to say if she did, or what to think about Christina, and Harvard, and her child studying psychology of all things, Helena leans forward to kiss the woman she loves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of their journey, my friends. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Any feedback is greatly welcomed!


End file.
